


Happily Ever After

by whichclothes



Series: Biteverse [10]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-09-28
Updated: 2011-09-30
Packaged: 2017-10-24 05:02:41
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 28,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/259301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whichclothes/pseuds/whichclothes
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Spike gets whacked with a magic mushroom, the boys learn there's more to fairy tales than happy endings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

_  
**Happily Ever After (1/7)**   
_   
**Title** : Happily Ever After (1/7)   
**Pairing:** Spike/Xander  
 **Rating:** NC-17  
 **Disclaimer** : I'm not Joss  
 **Summary:** When Spike gets whacked with a magic mushroom, the boys learn there's more to fairy tales than happy endings.  
 **Author's Notes:**   
  
This is the first of my fall_for_sx entries. I'll be posting the complete fic between now and Friday. This fic is a [Biteverse](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/154288.html#cutid1) adventure but you don't need to have read the Biteverse to enjoy.  
Many thanks to my lovely beta, silk_labyrinth, and to theladymerlin for the wonderful banner and icon!   
  


  
  
  
  


  


  
  
  
**HAPPILY EVER AFTER**   
  
  


  
  
  
**One**   
  
  


  
  
Spike loved to watch his boy work. He helped, nominally: sometimes fetching a hammer or picking up a dropped nail or holding a ladder steady. But mostly he leaned against a wall or straddled a chair, admiring the tautness of Xander’s arse beneath tight denim, the play of muscles on his broad back, the confident and deft movements of his hands; grinning at the way Xander’s fringe would fall in his face; waiting for the frequent moments when Xander would glance over his shoulder and give Spike a warm smile. If the Hyperion hadn’t already been a source of never-ending construction projects, Spike would have destroyed things just for the pleasure of seeing his lover fix them.   
  


  
  
“Hey, Fangface. Wanna get off your lazy butt and hand me my drill? If it isn’t too much of a strain.”   
  


  
  
Spike gave a mock growl before slowly standing and languidly stretching, knowing that doing so revealed a strip of skin above the low-slung waistband of his jeans. He swung his hips just a little as he sauntered across the room, and when he bent to retrieve the tool he made sure his arse waved invitingly in Xander’s direction.   
  


  
  
“Not gonna work,” Xander laughed. “I wanna get the wiring done today and then patch the holes so I can paint tomorrow.”   
  


  
  
“Could paint the next day.”   
  


  
  
“No, the next day I’m gonna install lights and shelves and cabinets. C’mon, Spike. Just another hour or so and then I’ll be done and we can take a nice hot shower together.”   
  


  
  
“You’ll shampoo my hair?”   
  


  
  
“I’ll clean every inch of you.”   
  


  
  
Spike sighed happily and brought him the drill, then returned to his chair. Building an infirmary had been a good idea. In their strange household someone was always needing patching up and the scattered first aid kits weren’t always up to the task. It wasn’t as if they could go to hospital either—doctors wouldn’t know what to do with vampires, a Slayer, or a werewolf. Even Wesley, the most human of them, had spent some time as a ghost and had come away from the experience with a few quirks in his system. And now there was the newest resident, the poor bloke Xander had dragged back with them from Praesidium. Magics had saved the bloke’s life but hadn’t mended the psychological trauma that kept him nearly comatose.    
  


  
  
The sound of the drill hurt Spike’s ears as Xander bored into a wall stud, and neither of them heard Angel enter the room. “Hey!” he shouted and they both startled. Xander almost fell off the ladder, but managed to keep his balance and turn off the tool.   
  


  
  
Spike shot out of his seat to glare up at Angel. “Be careful, wanker! If you cause my Xander to hurt himself—”   
  


  
  
“Sorry!” Angel said, clearly not meaning it. “But there’s this wacko out in Long Beach and if we don’t get there soon—”   
  


  
  
“Right. Another bloody emergency,” said Spike. But Xander had already descended the ladder and was unbuckling his tool belt. Angel left, presumably to wait impatiently in the lobby, and Spike and Xander ran up to their suite to collect their jackets. Xander slipped his eyepatch on. They both cast longing looks at their bathroom as they passed it. “I think I fancied him better when he was a baby,” Spike grumbled, referring to his grandsire. “Didn’t interrupt us with apocalypses all the time then.”   
  


  
  
“No, just with stinky diapers. I think I prefer apocalypses.”   
  


  
  
Spike had to concede that Xander had a point. They raced back down the stairs, skidding to a halt in front of Angel, Kyna, and Wesley, all of whom looked ready to leave. “You coming too, Wes?” Xander asked.   
  


  
  
“Yes. Magics are involved, apparently, and my knowledge might prove useful.”   
  


  
  
“I bet it will. But what about the mystery man? Is he gonna be okay on his own?”   
  


  
  
“Maffeo,” Wes replied softly.   
  


  
  
“Huh?”   
  


  
  
“Maffeo. It’s his name.”   
  


  
  
Xander was clearly about to ask how Wes knew that—Spike was wondering as well—but Angel huffed impatiently. “Can we do this on the way?” he asked.   
  


  
  
So they all piled into the van with Xander behind the wheel and Angel navigating. “What’s the 411 on tonight’s bad guy?” Xander asked as soon as he pulled onto the freeway.   
  


  
  
It was Kyna who answered. “He’s a wizard.”    
  


  
  
Spike groaned—his experiences with wizards had not all been happy ones.   
  


  
  
Kyna ignored him and continued. “Until recently he’s been harmless. He’s been selling love charms and minor curses.”   
  


  
  
“What kind of minor curses?” Xander wanted to know.   
  


  
  
“Oh … staining your favorite clothing, plumbing problems, never getting a good signal on your mobile phone. Things like that.”   
  


  
  
“That doesn’t sound too awful.”   
  


  
  
“It wasn’t. That’s why we’ve let him be. But our informants tell us that a week or so ago he suddenly became much more powerful. Nobody knows how. And tonight he means to destroy the port.”   
  


  
  
Xander shrugged. “Okay, that’s worse than staining. But why?”   
  


  
  
“I told you,” Angel said. “He’s a wacko.”   
  


  
  
Xander must have decided that was explanation enough because he changed the topic. “So, Wes. Maffeo?”   
  


  
  
Wesley was sitting next to Spike in the middle row of seats. He looked preoccupied, and he didn’t respond to Xander’s question until Spike gave him a gentle nudge.   
  


  
  
“Oh, sorry. I was …” Wes shook his head as if to clear it. “He was a bit more … coherent than usual this morning. His eyes actually focused on me and he asked me who I was. At least, I believe that’s what he asked. That language …”   
  


  
  
“Latin through a blender,” Spike agreed. “I reckon in his world the Romans made it to North America and brought some version of their language with them.”   
  


  
  
Wes nodded. “Yes, and it evolved over time as the other Romance languages did. At any rate, we managed a brief exchange. I told him my name and he said he’s called Maffeo. Then he looked about and his surroundings overwhelmed him. I know he’s in a simple hotel room—”   
  


  
  
“But it’s a long way from where he’s been,” Spike interrupted, shuddering at the reminder of his brief but painful captivity in the Keep.   
  


  
  
“Precisely. He’s withdrawn again. But I have hopes that with patience he’ll eventually recover, at least to some extent.”   
  


  
  
“You’re aching to interrogate the poor bloke, yeah?”   
  


  
  
Wes smiled slightly. “Yes. But also, well, I’d like him to realize that he’s free.”   
  


  
  
Spike was going to accuse Wes of succumbing to Florence Nightingale Syndrome, but then realized that he himself was the beneficiary of the syndrome: Xander had fallen for him when Spike was cursed and wounded and Xander had saved him and cared for him. So Spike only patted Wes’s knee and turned to look out his window.   
  


  
  
The evening traffic was heavy enough that it took them some time to get to Long Beach. Kyna was in the far back seat, so when she and Angel spent most of the ride bickering whether he would go back to Ireland to visit her family, Spike had to endure being in the crossfire. He didn’t understand why Angel bothered to put up an argument; in the end Kyna would have her way. Angel hadn’t returned to his homeland since he’d been turned, and Spike wondered whether the visit would be a shock to him. That got Spike thinking about London, where he hadn’t been in many decades. It might be nice to go there with Xander, show the old bitch of a city that Spike had someone now, that he _was_ someone. Perhaps they’d even pay a visit to Rupert and Lindsey, who were now apparently living as country gentleman.   
  


  
  
Spike was happily imagining a run through the heath, Xander loping four-legged at his side, when the van came to halt inside a parking garage on the waterfront. Everyone piled out, and Angel and Kyna led the way out of the building and down the pavement toward a crowd of people who were clustered beside an enormous cruise ship. Most of the people were smiling and laughing, taking pictures, tugging suitcases this way and that. But one man was off by himself at the far end of the ship. He was sitting on a bench and scowling—no holiday air to him at all. He wasn’t dressed for a cruise either: frayed jeans and a t-shirt that had faded from red to pink, and an unraveling watch cap pulled over his long, greasy hair.   
  


  
  
The man looked at the group of them with some alarm as they approached. Spike reckoned that their lot didn’t much look as if they meant to set sail either.    
  


  
  
“Todd Snowden?” Angel asked when they reached the bench.   
  


  
  
The man’s worry deepened. “Who are you?” he demanded.   
  


  
  
“We’re— It doesn’t matter. Look, we know what you’re planning, and—”   
  


  
  
Snowden leapt to his feet and scuttled a few feet farther from them. “How? Who told you? Who are you people?” His voice was squeaky and uneven, as if he hadn’t quite left adolescence, even though he looked to be in his early thirties.   
  


  
  
Angel held his hands up placatingly. “We don’t want to hurt you, okay?”   
  


  
  
“Hurt me? Do you have any idea what I’m capable of? Do you know who I am?”   
  


  
  
“Well, yeah,” Spike responded. “Peaches just told you that.”    
  


  
  
Angel and Kyna gave Spike dirty looks, but there was nothing new about that.    
  


  
  
Snowden backed away a bit more. “You guys can’t stop me!”   
  


  
  
Xander tried his goofy grin, the one that made him look like the friendly chap who lived next door and occasionally popped over to borrow some eggs or natter about football. “Hey, Todd. I bet something’s bugging you. I get it—been there myself, my friend. How about if you come back to our place, throw back a few beers, and you can tell us all about it. Maybe we can help.”   
  


  
  
“Nobody can help!” Snowden screamed.   
  


  
  
“Maybe not, but look at these people.” Xander gestured at the crowds waiting to board the ship. “They just want to climb on the fun ship, pig out on food, get drunk on margaritas, watch bad comedians, buy cheap medicines in Ensenada. You don’t want to ruin their vacation.”   
  


  
  
“I don’t care about those people. They’re … nothing. Bugs.” Snowden took another step back and the rest of them moved forward, trying to surround him without sending him completely bonkers. “I used to be a bug, too. But not now! Now I have powers!”   
  


  
  
“Sure, buddy. I know how that goes. Now think of all the good you could do with those powers.”   
  


  
  
“Good? Why should I do good? The fucking world’s never done anything for me. Not even when I tried … I was a nice guy. I really loved Sara. Bought her flowers and shit, took her out to dinner even when I couldn’t afford it. I treated her nice. Promised her someday I’d make it big and then she’d really be my princess. And what does she do? Dumps me for some asshole who wanted to take her to Mexico! Just dumps me like I was nothing, like I was dirt.”   
  


  
  
Kyna asked, “Is Sara on this ship?”   
  


  
  
“Of course not! That was last year. I dunno where the bitch is now. But I couldn’t do anything about it back then, and now I can. Now I will. I’ll show her!”   
  


  
  
Snowden’s eyes flashed and Spike realized that talking reason to him wasn’t going to work. After a century with Dru, Spike knew what lunacy looked like and this bloke was a prime example. Unfortunately, offering to serve entrails and virgin’s blood at a tea party—the usual method of calming Dru down—probably wasn’t going to work in this instance.   
  


  
  
Spike shot Xander a warning look, trying to communicate all of this with a glance, and Xander nodded. The others seemed to draw the same conclusions, because while they still moved slowly, they began to close the circle around their prey.   
  


  
  
The man’s mad eyes filled with panic and he raised his hands. He had something clutched in one palm, but not enough of it was visible to identify it. “Stop it!” Snowden screeched. “I mean it!”   
  


  
  
Everyone took another step closer to him. Out of the corner of his eye, Spike saw that some of the holiday-goers had noticed the ruckus and turned to watch, but they weren’t important at the moment.    
  


  
  
“C’mon,” Xander said in one last attempt at peace. “We can talk about this. We can—”   
  


  
  
Snowden launched himself at Xander, screaming words in what sounded like ancient Greek. Xander howled and dropped to his knees, clutching his head, red streams of blood trickling from his ears.   
  


  
  
And Spike lost all ability to think rationally. He simply leapt at Snowden, knocking the man to the pavement and landing on his chest so that the air was expelled from Snowden’s lungs in one loud grunt. The spell-casting stopped as Snowden tried to take in more oxygen and Spike vamped out, meaning to tear the bastard’s throat out. But before Spike’s fangs met with flesh, Snowden’s hand thumped against Spike’s shoulder. The blow was nothing in itself. Spike wouldn’t have noticed at all, except the hand that hit him was the one that had been holding the mystery item. As soon as the object made contact with Spike, every nerve in his body seemed to jerk all at once. It was as if he had touched a powerful electrical wire. He fell off Snowden, his limbs in uncontrollable spasms and his back bowed so sharply he felt as if it might snap. He was choking on his own blood from having bitten his tongue, but his jaw was clamped closed and he couldn’t even cry out. He couldn’t tell what was going on around him either, as his senses were as disarrayed as the rest of him. All he could make out were sparkling lights and a muffled jumble of sounds. It took all his might to remain conscious.   
  


  
  
He didn’t know how long the seizure lasted. By the time he could once again control himself he was lying in the back seat of the van. He blinked his eyes open and realized that his head was in Xander’s lap. Xander looked like hell—blood on his cheeks and neck, his eye bloodshot, and his brows drawn in worry—but he was clearly alive, and he was stroking Spike’s hair.   
  


  
  
“You back with me, Fang?” Xander asked softly.   
  


  
  
Spike licked at his lips and swallowed a few times. “Yeah. What’s … what …”   
  


  
  
“Don’t worry. Everything’s okay. That whammy Todd put on you drained away all his power. He’s gagged and hogtied and nothing sank.”   
  


  
  
It took a great deal of strength for Spike to raise his arm and brush his fingertips against Xander’s face. “He hurt you.”   
  


  
  
“I’m fine. Just a headache.” He bent down and touched his lips to Spike’s forehead. “You saved me. But Jesus, Spike, you scared the hell out of me.”   
  


  
  
“ ’M all right. Just … tired is all.” And sore. His muscles felt as if he’d run for miles.   
  


  
  
“So sleep. We’ll be home in half an hour and then we can tuck each other into bed.”   
  


  
  
That sounded lovely to Spike. He shut his eyes and let the gentle sway of the van and the warmth of his boy lull him into a doze.   
  


  
  
By the time they reached the Hyperion, enough of Spike’s strength had returned so that he could stand and walk, supported only by Xander’s arm around his waist. Or maybe his arm was supporting Xander—it was hard to tell. In any case, Spike watched with little interest as Angel heaved a bound and struggling weight onto his shoulder and lugged their captive into the hotel.    
  


  
  
As Xander and Spike staggered through the lobby and toward the lifts—and Spike was feeling very thankful that his boy had the lifts running again—Wes put up a hand to stop them. “You’ll want to be careful,” he said.   
  


  
  
“Going to bed,” Spike said with a snort. “That careful enough for you?”   
  


  
  
“Yes, yes, that’s fine. But I mean for the next several days.”   
  


  
  
“I told you, I’m fine,” Xander said. “Just a headache.”   
  


  
  
Wesley looked very grave. “That spell he was using on you would have killed you if you were merely human. But you’re a werewolf and Spike stopped him in time, so you’re right—you should be fine. It’s Spike I’m concerned about.”   
  


  
  
“Vampire, mate. Mended by morning,” said Spike.   
  


  
  
“Our wizard’s rather weak talents were enhanced by a very rare item. I shall be quite interested to learn how he obtained it. It’s a sort of … mystical fungus. It enhances the magical properties of the people and items it touches.”   
  


  
  
“Todd has a magic mushroom?” Xander asked incredulously.   
  


  
  
“Something like that, yes. Well, he _had_ one. When Spike attacked him, Snowden hit Spike with the fungus. The fungus itself was destroyed in the effort, which is just as well. But I fear that some of its effects may have been transferred to Spike.”   
  


  
  
Xander’s eye widened. “Effects? What effects? I don’t want Spike affected!”   
  


  
  
Wes clapped a hand to Xander’s shoulder. “It should be temporary. A few days at most. But during that time, any magic that Spike encounters is likely to have disturbing consequences.”   
  


  
  
“No worries,” Spike said wearily. “Never have fancied mojo and I mean to stay well away from it. My boy and I will lock ourselves in our suite if necessary.” He was proud to manage a weak leer. But then he had an alarming thought. “Erm … this fungus … it won’t do anything to supernatural beings, will it? Like … make a werewolf … wolfier?” Like the time Xander had been stuck in wolf form and Spike had nearly been dusted trying to save him.   
  


  
  
Wes shook his head. “No, you should be safe around Xander and Kyna and Angel and me. And yourself, for that matter. The fungus enhances spells, charms, talismans, things like that. Not living beings. Or unliving ones,” he added with a small smile.   
  


  
  
“Lovely. We’re off then. I expect you want to check in on Maffeo.”   
  


  
  
“I do. Just be careful, and fetch me if anything … unusual happens.”   
  


  
  
With a tired nod, Spike led Xander to the lifts.   
  


  
  
Their shower wasn’t nearly as enjoyable as the one they had planned earlier that evening. It was a quick one, just enough to wash the blood from Xander’s face and to relax Spike’s sore muscles a bit. They were both still damp as they climbed into bed. As they always did, they moved against one another, Xander’s arms wrapping around Spike. Spike pressed his lips to Xander’s neck and sucked just a bit, finding comfort as always in the familiar actions.   
  


  
  
Spike meant to fall asleep straight away. But Xander’s breaths remained a bit rapid and uneven; his boy was having trouble drifting off. “What is it, pet?” Spike murmured.   
  


  
  
“Nothing. I just hate seeing you hurt, that’s all. It worries me.”   
  


  
  
“But ’m fine now, yeah?” Spike pressed more tightly against him to prove his point. “Tomorrow you can finish your wiring and I’ll watch. Might even help a bit.”   
  


  
  
Xander snorted. “Your helping isn’t all that helpful.”   
  


  
  
“Oi!”    
  


  
  
They lay there a while longer, but Xander remained restless, his legs jittery and his fingertips twitching on Spike’s skin. Finally, Spike sighed and sat up. “I’ll read to you a bit.”   
  


  
  
Xander smiled at him. “You could read that stuff you had the other day—”   
  


  
  
“Byron?”   
  


  
  
“Yeah. Old poems. That’ll probably conk me right out.”   
  


  
  
Spike rolled his eyes but reached for his bedside table. Instead of the volume he’d intended, his hands closed on another book: a collection of fairy tales that he’d found at an antiquarian book shop the previous week. The old edition, beautifully bound and illustrated, was meant as a gift for Buffy’s children. But when Xander had glanced at the book, he goggled at the violent and bloody unexpurgated fairy tales, and vetoed handing the book over until the children were in their teens.   
  


  
  
Well, Spike reckoned, the book made perfectly fine bedtime fare for a vampire and a werewolf. He opened the book and began to read. He was only two or three pages in when Xander’s soft snores began. Spike smiled, put down the book, and turned off the light. Then he snuggled up against his boy and fell asleep.   
  


  
[   
  
Chapter Two   
  
](http://whichclothes.livejournal.com/304318.html)   


  



	2. Chapter 2

Two

 

“Mother! I look a complete prat in this coat.”

His mother tutted and brushed at the lapel. “You are a Pratt, William, and you ought to be proud of it. Besides, this coat belonged to your Grandfather Pratt and your grandmother shall be quite pleased to see you in it.”

“It was out of style before I was born, Mother.”

She smiled. “True quality never goes out of style.”

“It’s red!”

“A color that complements your complexion, dear.”

William huffed and rolled his eyes, but stopped protesting. He would take the long route so as to avoid the possibility of being seen by anyone he knew. He was the butt of jokes often enough as it was and he didn’t intend to give them any additional ammunition.

Anne stepped back and looked him up and down, then nodded approvingly. She turned and picked up a large basket from a table and handed it to him. He knew what was inside because she’d insisted he watch her pack it: a loaf of bread, a round of good cheese, two jam jars, a plate of spotted dick, and a bottle of sherry. It was his mother’s annual birthday gift to her late husband’s mother. Anne may never have got on with her mother-in-law but she didn’t shirk her duties.

Unfortunately, this year she had decided that using William as messenger was sufficient to fulfill her responsibilities. William didn’t get on with the old hag any better than his mother did. Even when he was a young boy, the old woman had called him ugly and stupid and impudent, and neither her temper nor her opinion of him had improved over the years.

But William wasn’t one to deny his mother, so he took the basket and headed for the door.

“Remember, dear. Straight to your grandmother’s house. No dawdling.”

“I’m not a child, mother.”

“And no stopping at pubs, either. Or at the booksellers.”

“Yes, Mum,” he said with a sigh.

When he left the house William considered hiring a carriage, but then decided against it. His grandmother’s house was only a mile away. It was mid-morning and although the sky was a leaden gray, it wasn’t raining. A bit of a constitutional might do him good, even. Give him the chance to work through the fiddly bit in his current poem. What rhymed with magnificent?

Instead of going straight up Gower Street, where two of his acquaintances lived, he walked to Bedford Place and turned left. That took him to Russell Square, which he knew would be populated at this time of day only by doddering old ladies and nannies with their charges. The grass and trees in the square were pleasantly green, with a few bright flowers here and there. Perhaps his next poem could be composed here; it wasn’t quite Nature, but it might be close enough to inspire him, and it was certainly more convenient than taking the railway to the countryside.

Lost in these thoughts, he nearly collided with a man who was turning onto the path in front of him. “Pardon me,” William mumbled, keeping his head down in case the man might recognize him in the ridiculous coat. But the man hopped nimbly to the fore, blocking his way.

“Where are you going in such a hurry?” The man had an American accent.

At first William assumed it must be someone having a jest at his expense—that sod Robert Farrington was prone to just such bad humor. But when William finally looked up, he realized the man was a complete stranger—and strange was an apt term. He was hatless, with nearly-black hair long and somewhat unkempt. He wore a black patch over one eye, while the other eye sparkled with merriment. His lips were curled in an easy grin. He wasn’t much taller than William but he was broad and muscular, and he wore the clothes of a workman: plain black trousers, a white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to reveal heavy forearms, a dark waistcoat. He was tieless as well, and the top few buttons of his shirt were unfastened to reveal a small patch of dark hair.

“Pardon me,” William repeated, inexplicably feeling himself blush. “You’re in my way.”

The man’s smile intensified, showing a great many straight white teeth. “Well, that’s too bad, isn’t it?”

William frowned at him. “I don’t know what you’re after, but you’re being frightfully rude. I’ve an errand to run—”

“Yeah, I can tell, with your nice basket and all.” The man waggled his eyebrows and, to William’s horror, actually leered at him. He didn’t move out of the way, either.

“See here, you impudent—”

William was silenced as the man set a large hand on his shoulder. The hand wasn’t forceful—to a bystander it would have seemed friendly, in fact—but there was something … masterful about the act, something possessive. William shuddered slightly, and not from disgust.

“C’mon,” said the stranger. “Is it really that big of an emergency? I bet you have time to take a break. Come have a drink with me. Or something.” His voice remained easy but his eye was bright and predatory.

The ridiculous thing was that William was sorely tempted by the man’s offer. He could almost imagine the taste of ale in his mouth, the words that might be said in that abominable accent if they were somewhere more private— No. He shook his head. “Get out of my way at once. I must get to my grandmother’s house.”

“You can visit granny after.”

“Now. Before she takes her midday nap. She’s all the way on Upper Wimpole Street.”

The man’s easy grin didn’t fade. “Okay. I’ll come with. Help you carry.” He flexed a bicep as if to demonstrate his strength.

“You will not! Grandmother Pratt would never—” William stopped himself, suddenly unsure why he was even bothering to explain. “Out of my way!”

With a shrug and a mocking bow, the man stepped aside, waving William forward. “Sure thing, pal. Maybe another time.” And he winked, which looked very odd with the single eye.

William scowled at him and continued on his way. He half expected the man to pursue him, but when William came to the end of the path and turned to look back, there was no sign of the American. “Good,” he mumbled to himself. “Horrid ruffian.” But he didn’t feel nearly as relieved as he should have.

He didn’t encounter anyone he knew as he continued the journey, and although sometimes he had the sensation of being watched, he saw no sign of the strange man.

His grandmother lived in a four-story building. The exterior of the ground floor was white plaster and the remainder of the building was tan brick. A low fence of black iron ran the width of it. It was an expensive house, but in no way posh or showy; it was as no-nonsense as his grandmother herself. Before his grandfather retired from medicine, the old man had his surgery on the ground floor. William had vague memories of being dragged through the place when he was very young, the strange smells and devices nearly terrifying him out of his wits. Even though that had been over two decades earlier and William was now a grown man, even though his grandfather was long since in the grave and few traces remained of the surgery, William had to take a deep breath and straighten his shoulders before he knocked.

He waited impatiently, but the door remained closed. So he knocked again, but still there was no response. Frowning, he tried the knob—and the door opened easily. He would have to report to his mother that his grandmother’s maid had become completely derelict in her duties. Or perhaps some ill had befallen the maid—she was nearly as elderly as his grandmother.

“Mrs. Hales?” William called when he was in the entry hall. “Grandmother?” But there was no response. He frowned at the closed door that led to the former surgery—now simply two bare rooms, devoid of furnishings of any kind, the old wallpaper faded and stained—and peered into the small parlor on the other side of the vestibule. Nobody was there, and no sounds came from the kitchen beyond.

Still frowning, now with worry, William climbed the stairs. His grandmother’s bedroom was on the next floor. When he was younger, she used to meet him and his mother in the parlor, but she had been largely bedridden for some time now. He hated the smell of her room: powder and medicine and urine and age. But he steeled himself nonetheless and rapped on her door. “Grandmother?” he called again.

Sounds came from within. Hurried sounds, he thought, and there was something furtive about them. William paused a moment and then reached for the door.

“Hey.”

William nearly jumped out of his skin. He leapt backwards, dropping the basket and nearly falling in the process, because the door next to his grandmother’s had been flung open and the man from Russell Square was standing there, smiling.

“Y-You!” William croaked.

“Man, you’re slow. Did you take the scenic route?”

“How … how …” William sputtered hopelessly, finding himself unable to form a full sentence.

The man took a slow step toward him. A prowl, really. William stumbled back again, this time bumping into the wall.

“I beat you here,” said the stranger. “Upper Walpole’s not a very long street. I just asked someone where old lady Pratt lived.”

“I demand to know why you’re here! What is it you want?”

Another step closer, and then another and another, so that they were nearly face-to-face. The man reached up and stroked William’s hair. “Thought that was pretty obvious. I want you.”

“You—!” William couldn’t even breathe, let alone speak. He gaped like a fish instead—until the man leaned forward and kissed him.

The only kisses William had ever received had been maternal pecks on his cheek. Nothing … sensuous. He had imagined the act, of course. He’d even attempted to write about it—something about lips transcendent and angels’ caresses, he recalled. But his attempts at poetry had failed because he’d never experienced a true kiss, and now he realized that his imagination paled before the reality. A real kiss made his heart race so fast he thought he might expire, caused a tingle in him that ran from his face straight to his groin, made his mind whirl dizzily.

When the stranger pulled away, William nearly grabbed at him to keep him close.

“That was really nice,” the man said.

“This … this is an outrage,” William said. But he didn’t sound outraged, not even to himself. His voice was soft.

The man smiled and reached up again, this time to run his calloused fingertips along William’s cheekbone. What big hands he had! William shivered at his touch.

“What do they call you?” the American asked in a hoarse whisper.

“W-William.”

“Will. That’s nice too. Will he or won’t he? Oh, I bet he will.” His voice was teasing and so was his smile, but his palm was warm against William’s jaw. “I’m Xander.”

“You can’t … I can’t—”

“Sure you can. It’s easy. Like this.” And Xander leaned in again, stealing a kiss that was even longer and more toe-curling than the first. Then he moved back and took William’s hand in his, tugging firmly. “Come on.”

William was dimly aware that he should be struggling. He should be raising a ruckus and finding out what had happened to his grandmother. But he meekly permitted himself to be pulled down the hall, past the open door from which Xander had appeared, and into the room beyond.

The last time William had entered this room he had been a boy of five or six, escaping his parents’ watchful eyes to explore his grandparents’ house. He’d discovered a bed and chest of drawers here, which hadn’t interested him at all, but there had also been a bookcase crammed with books. Most of them had difficult words and no pictures, but after pulling several of them out he’d discovered some that were clearly meant for children, with easy rhymes and colorful prints. Not caring about the dust, he’d sat on a rug and begun to leaf through one with beautiful illustrations. Until his father came marching in, furious at William’s disobedience. William had received a spanking when they got home, his father’s hard hand assuring a bruised bottom for days.

The bookshelf was still there. But Xander dragged him to the bed, and as William stood there helplessly, Xander tugged the dirty linens off until only a bare mattress remained.

“We can’t …” William tried again, without much conviction. His knees felt weak.

How did Xander manage to have such big, straight teeth? “We can. I’ll show you.” He grasped William’s red coat, pushing it down until it slid off his arms and onto the floor. Then he began to unbutton William’s waistcoat.

With the last of his self-control, William grabbed Xander’s wrists. “Stop! I don’t—”

“Oh, but I do. Tell you what. I’ll start.” Xander slithered back, out of William’s grasp. As William watched, open-mouthed, Xander undressed. First his waistcoat and shirt and undershirt, revealing a broad chest rippling with muscle and partly covered in curly black hairs. Then he kicked off his boots. Their thuds against the floor made William jump a bit. Finally, with the biggest smile yet, Xander unfastened his trousers and let them drop to his feet. He wore no underclothes.

“Oh!” William exclaimed involuntarily. Xander’s … organ … was fully erect, and very, very big.

“Don’t worry, baby. My bark is worse than my bite.” Xander bent to remove his socks, then stepped closer again. William was helpless to resist as those rough paws tugged at his clothing. Soon, William was as bare as the other man. And, he noticed with some surprise, just as erect.

Xander licked his lips. “Tasty. I could eat you right up.”

William had read about opium dreams and now he wondered if he’d somehow fallen into one. But Xander’s hands felt very real against his torso and arms and flanks, petting and stroking, and when Xander pushed him back onto the bed, the mattress felt realistically scratchy. And when Xander landed atop him, skin against skin, that felt more real than anything William had experienced in his sheltered, limited life.

Xander began to kiss him, lips soft yet insistent against William’s neck, against his collarbones. Tongue and teeth worrying at his nipples, nipping just enough to sting, and William realized that he was moaning and that his hands had found their way to Xander’s buttocks, which were as strong as the rest of him.

This isn’t me, he protested silently. I’m not this wanton … catamite. But his body was responding as if it were made for this, and Xander's weight and caresses felt so familiar, so right, so good.

Xander’s mouth moved down William’s body, lavishing attention on his sternum and then his belly, licking at his pelvic bones. Then Xander was nuzzling at William’s groin, his nose buried in the curls. Only when Xander tongued at William’s most private bits did William realize that he had spread his legs wide, bent his knees, and tilted his hips, giving Xander freer access. “Oh, God!” William cried when that agile tongue actually entered his body.

Xander chuckled darkly against him.

“Please, please, please …” William chanted breathlessly. He didn’t even know what he was begging for. For Xander to stop? No, definitely not that! For him to continue, then, and for his wandering fingers to stop their teasing and finally touch William’s cock, which was throbbing with need. For the intrusion in his body to be harder, faster, more. For all of Xander in him, on him, over him. For permission to squeeze, to taste. For being opened and completed.

When Xander suddenly moved off the bed, William nearly sobbed. But Xander was back in a flash, his vulpine smile triumphant, and he had a small glass vial between his fingers. William watched as Xander removed the stopper and upended the vial between William’s legs. The oil within was cool and smelled like a pine forest. Xander softly ran a single fingertip down William’s inner right thigh. He stroked ever so gently at the sensitive skin behind William’s bollocks. And then his finger was inside William, just as his tongue had been, but his finger was longer, harder, more there.

“Xander,” William moaned.

“Just a sec, baby. I want you nice and ready for me.”

“I am! I am ready,” William protested, because he was suddenly certain that this was something he had been waiting for, yearning for, his entire life.

Xander laughed again, deep and raspy. William watched with wide eyes as the other man stroked his own cock, making it glisten with moisture and oil. A moment later the fat tip of that cock was pressed against William and, just when William meant to protest that he couldn’t possibly accommodate that thing inside his body, it was in him, the length of it sliding slowly deeper.

It hurt, and the feeling of being stretched and filled was entirely alien. William cried out and might have pushed Xander away, except just then Xander’s hand finally wrapped around William’s neglected cock. Xander’s thumb traced the wet slit, pushing in just a bit, and William no longer cared about the pain. In fact, he welcomed it, like spices in a meal, and he once again grasped Xander’s buttocks, urging him in deeper.

“Christ, that’s good,” Xander groaned. His single eye was focused on William’s face and William again had an almost deja-vu experience, as if he and Xander had done this countless times before.

The erotica that William had furtively glimpsed over the years had given no hint of how … earthy sex would be, with the wet sounds of flesh in flesh and the breathy gasps and grunts, with Xander’s sweat dripping onto him and his own sweat sliding off his brow. With the musty odors of mold and old dust and the musky scent of two men. With the taste of his own blood in his mouth because he’d bitten his lip. It wasn’t a spiritual act or a mystical one, as some of the poems implied, and it wasn’t the quick little slap and tickle he’d seen in etchings. But it also wasn’t the crude and vulgar act that moralists would have had him believe. Sex was carnal and primitive, it was simple and true. Every nerve in his body sang with the unsophisticated joy of it, and the stranger pounding into him was more real than any person he’d previously met.

Xander moved faster, changing the angle of his thrusts, and William quite literally saw stars.

Then Xander collapsed onto him, nearly bending him in half, and bit William’s shoulder very hard. William gasped voicelessly. Xander released his jaws and reared up again, howling loudly enough to shake the window glass. And William came undone, climaxing in wave after wave of pleasure, adding his own cries to the din.

The minutes afterward were soft and somewhat hazy. Xander pulled out of William with a squelching sound that made William blush. Xander rolled off him. William straightened his legs, feeling suddenly empty and bereft. But then Xander was wrapping an arm around William’s middle and licking at the wound on his shoulder—which stung—and the continued contact was an unexpected gift.

It had begun to rain outside and the drops pattered noisily against the window. Bother! William had forgotten an umbrella. He was going to have to find one before he went home. If he went home.

He turned his head so that his face was inches away from Xander’s. The eyepatch had gone slightly askew during their lovemaking, but Xander didn’t seem to care. “What did you do with my grandmother? And Mrs. Hales?” asked Spike.

Xander shrugged slightly. “Nothing worse than you’ll do to hundreds of people—thousands, maybe—someday. Or actually, what you’ve already done.”

William didn’t know what to make of that statement, so he let it be. He’d find out the truth soon enough, when the real world came back. For now he could steal a few more minutes of false peace. But he couldn’t help asking, “And what will you do to me now?”

That made Xander grin. “Nothing you won’t beg me for.”

“Who are you?”

Xander’s smile grew larger and toothier and he tapped the tip of William’s nose with one fingertip. “Haven’t you guessed already, baby? I’m the Big Bad Wolf.”


	3. Chapter 3

Three

 

Spike shifted slightly as the dream slipped away. He had hoped to hold on to it a bit longer—it was strange but pleasant. He didn’t often dream of his human days, and certainly not with such vivid sexual content. He snorted softly to himself: in reality, William would have had apoplexy at the mere thought of being buggered by a strange and mysterious bloke. Not that the nancy hadn’t secretly wondered what sodomy would be like, hadn’t furtively admired handsome men. But he’d never admitted that to himself until after he was turned.

But now the dream was truly gone. Spike shifted again, making his chains rattle softly, making the pains in his back and arse twinge anew. At least dream-William had got his end away. That was considerably more than Spike was going to manage anytime soon. He looked down at the snug metal cage that was fastened over his tackle and scowled. Couldn’t even get hard in the bloody thing.

Spike didn’t know what quirk of his unconscious had led him to dream about shagging a one-eyed American human. No, not quite human. There had been something … more about him. Something beastly. In a very nice way. Xander, he’d been called. From where had Spike’s brain dredged that odd name? But even now, with the dream fading, Spike felt an odd longing, as if he had lost something valuable. Perhaps Xander was meant to symbolize something Spike had lost. His humanity? His love? His freedom? He’d lost so much it was hard to know.

He moved again, just a bit, and leaned his head back against the brick wall. Everything around him smelled of his blood, and he was filthy and hungry and so sodding tired. Perhaps he could fall back asleep. Perhaps he’d dream of that Xander again.

But as if on cue a door slammed open and heavy footsteps came stomping down the stairs. Spike didn’t have to open his eyes to sense the large figure looming over him, and he had already prepared himself for the kick aimed at his knee.

“Get up, ye lazy rubbish.”

Slowly, Spike complied. He didn’t actually look at Angelus until he had to, though, and when he did he saw the expression he'd anticipated: malice and annoyance and brutish amusement. When Angelus reached toward him, Spike flinched, and then Angelus smirked as he simply unlocked the chain that fastened Spike’s collar to the wall.

“Time to earn yer keep,” Angelus said.

Spike nodded wearily and bent to retrieve his trousers. They were nothing but rags now, but that didn’t especially matter because he couldn’t slip them past his ankle hobbles anyway. He began to tie the fabric about his waist as a sort of loincloth, but Angelus snatched it from him and tossed it away.

“Oi!”

“Did I give ye permission to wear clothes, boy?”

“No. But—”

Angelus backhanded him hard enough to knock him off his feet. The pain in his back bloomed anew. But he scrambled awkwardly up before Angelus could kick him again. Angelus clapped a meaty hand against Spike’s back, making him yelp. “Ye’ve still some skin remainin’ on yer back, boy. Get upstairs before I whip that off as well.”

Spike wanted nothing more than to sink his fangs into that smug face. But Angelus had been stronger to begin with, and now Spike was underfed and weak. An attack would only leave him with broken bones and bloody welts. So, chains rattling, he shuffled past Angelus and up the stairs.

The demon upstairs was prettier than Angel but twice as dangerous. Fortunately, she seemed distracted as Spike entered the room: she simply curled her lip at him in disgust and turned to Angelus. “It’s well past sunset,” she said in her little-girl voice. “We should be off hunting already.”

Spike’s stomach clenched at the words. When had they last allowed him to feed? But Angelus only grunted at Darla and then pushed Spike forward. “Go and clean up the mess, boy.”

The mess in question was the leftovers from the previous night: a pair of corpses piled unceremoniously in the corner. One of them was a young priest, his young face transfixed in horror and his brown eyes staring sightlessly at the ceiling. The other was a nun. She was young as well, her black skirts hiked up to her waist, and she smelled of Angelus. Spike hoisted her body into his arms first, snuffling at the wound in her neck for any sign of blood. But none remained except a dried little crust around the holes. Spike carried the body out of the parlor, through the dining room and kitchen, and out into the back garden. There he left it, returning a few moments later with the dead priest. Darla had a pair of minions who would take the cadavers and dump them somewhere before they began to smell; Spike himself hadn’t been permitted off the property by himself since Dru dusted.

Bitter tears threatened to spill as he made his way slowly back to the parlor. Drusilla, his beautiful dark princess. He’d loved her so, and she’d cared for him as well, in her own daft way. As well as she was able. But his adoration of her hadn’t kept her from slipping out of their bed one afternoon and running out into the sunshine—the birds were calling her name, she’d said. Spike had watched her burn from the threshold. And although her final death wasn’t really his fault he’d blamed himself. Unfortunately, Angelus had blamed him as well. And without Dru to act as a buffer between Spike and the older vampires, Spike’s unlife had become worse than miserable. Really, that stupid dream with the one-eyed man was the best thing that had happened to him in ages. Even if he still inexplicably yearned for a bloke who wasn’t real.

Angelus cuffed the side of Spike’s head. “Fetch our coats.”

The coats were upstairs. Spike had to walk past the bedroom he used to share with Dru, the one with the huge comfortable bed and the adjoining bathroom with the copper bathtub. The minions used to fill it with hot water for him and Dru would bathe him, nattering happily about mermen and the like, as often as not ending up in the bath with him.

When he returned to the parlor, Angelus and Darla were arguing. Spike held back against the wall, silently cursing his cowardice but unwilling to face their ire.

“It’s a ball, Darla. Dancin’. For humans.”

“Yes, but we’ve been invited as well.” She held a cream-colored card in one delicate hand.

“We’re not human.”

“I know, idiot boy. But they think we are. They think we’re minor nobility in fact, important enough to be invited to a royal ball.”

Angelus huffed. “I don’t like the way nobility taste. Too fatty.”

“We’re not going to eat them, stupid! We’re going to wear fancy clothing and mix among them, dancing and laughing and drinking their wine.” Her eyes sparkled at the notion. Spike wasn’t meant to know that she had once been a whore, but Dru had divulged that secret not long after she turned him. Even now that she was a demon, a former whore might very well relish a night of acceptance by the upper crust.

Angelus might or might not have understood this, but he certainly recognized when his sire had her mind set. He scowled in Spike’s direction, silently promising to take out his frustration on Spike’s hide later, and then took Darla’s hand. “If it makes ye happy, darlin’, we’ll go.”

Darla smiled at him. Then she marched over and grabbed her coat from Spike’s hands. Angelus did the same, and for a brief moment Spike hoped they would just leave, giving him the chance to escape. But then Angelus slapped Spike’s arse and pushed him down onto the rug. Soon Spike was hogtied and gagged and abandoned.

 

***

 

“Do you think I should wear this dress, dear, or the blue one?”

Angelus raised his head wearily. “Ye look fetchin’ in both.”

“I know that. But which is better?”

“Uh … this one.”

Darla frowned at him, looked down at herself, and said, “I’m gonna change.” Ignoring Angelus’s aggrieved sigh, she flounced out of the room.

Spike was on all fours, bare arse in the air, attempting to scrub blood from the Persian carpet. Sometimes Angelus lifted a lazy leg and pressed the pointed toe of his shoe against Spike’s buttocks, always right where the bruising was worst. “Put yer elbows into it, boy.”

Spike suppressed a growl and kept on scrubbing. The scent of the blood made him slightly dizzy. He was hungry again, of course. Two nights earlier Angelus had dragged in a maid—a virgin girl perhaps 15 years old—and he’d fucked Spike while forcing Spike to lap at the crying girl’s cunt. The wanker had taken his time about coming, too, and after he did he tore into the girl’s throat. He’d left Spike only a few swallows of her blood, and then made Spike suck him off to thank him for it.

Now, Angelus rested his heels on Spike’s arse and turned the pages of his book. But he jumped to his feet and set the book down when Darla entered the room, resplendent in peacock blue, her hair done up with ringlets, and a shimmering necklace about her pale throat. “Ye look ravishin’,” Angelus said. “All the women will be green with envy.”

“Of course they will. Now take care of that,” she waved a hand in Spike’s direction, “and let’s go.”

Spike was gagged again, but this time Angelus left him propped in a corner, wrists chained firmly to his ankles. At least the fire was still roaring in the fireplace; Spike would be warmer beside it than in the cellar.

With nothing left to do, he dozed, again half-hoping for good dreams. But he was awakened suddenly by a strange sound, a sort of bell-like tinkling. And then he yelped into his gag as a woman popped into existence in front of him.

She was not long out of her teens and she had bright ginger hair. Her clothing was very odd: a pair of blue trousers and a fuzzy pink jumper. She gave him a sad smile. “Oh, poor William!”

“Spike,” he tried to say, but couldn’t.

She walked over to him and patted his head before pointing a stick at him. At first he reckoned she meant to stake him, but she didn’t actually touch him with the stick; she simply waved it about, muttering something in horrible Latin. It was a wand, he realized as the gag simply disappeared. He wasn’t sure if he ought to be relieved. But he licked his cracked lips and squinted at her. “What are you then?”

“I’m your fairy godmother.”

He blinked. “Fairy—I’m a bloody demon. I don’t have a fairy godmother.”

“Yeah, I know. I thought the assignment was kind of weird too. But the boss said you needed help and, well, you kinda do. Angelus is being a great big poop-head.”

“He’s a vicious, serial-killing, torture-loving son of a bitch, love.”

“Right. A poop-head who’s being really mean to you.”

Spike’s head was starting to hurt. “What do you want from me?” he asked wearily.

But she shook her head. “Nothing. You get to ask me for something. That’s the rule. You’re in trouble and so you get one bona fide good fairy wish. What do you wish for?”

He closed his eyes. “Wish I weren’t going as mad as Dru.”

She bonked him on the head with her wand. “A real wish. I can do something gory to Angelus if you want. Flaying is kind of a specialty of mine.”

He opened his eyes and gave her a careful look. She didn’t seem to be taking the piss. “Erm … no. Cheers. Couldn’t you just poof these chains away?” He wiggled his feet and hands a little.

“Think big, William.”

“Spike.”

“Oh. Sorry. Think big, Spike. What’s your heart’s desire?”

He’d never really asked himself that before. Freedom would be lovely, but was that truly what he most yearned for? He’d been free when he was alive and he wasn’t happy then. He’d been lonely and desperate for love. “Bring Dru back,” he said.

“I can’t,” she said sadly. “Resurrection of the dead is one of our no-nos, along with the old wishing for more wishes scam. I can raise zombies, but ew, and anyway not when all that’s left is ashes.”

He shut his eyes again and slumped over his knees. “Never mind then. Just … leave me be. Go flit somewhere else.”

She crouched down and cupped his chin with her warm hand, raising his head. She smelled brilliant and he considered biting her, but she could probably poof out of his range and besides, eating a fairy would probably be a mistake. “Come on,” she said softly. “There must be something.”

“Xander,” he found himself saying. “I wish I could see Xander again.”

It was her turn to look surprised. “You want to see Xander? The Xander with the, um …” She covered her left eye with her hand.

His dead heart leapt. She knew him! He was real! “Yeah.”

“Oh! Well, you should’ve said so. That’s easy!”

And while he was still trying to process that, she stood back, waved her wand, and muttered more Latin. The manacles disappeared. Even the heavy metal collar on his neck—the collar that had weighed him down for months and had rubbed his skin raw—was gone. The sodding cock cage was gone as well. He rose to his feet a bit unsteadily, but before he could take a step he was wearing clothing. Strange clothing, yet oddly comfortable: a pair of tight black trousers in an unfamiliar heavy fabric, a black buttonless shirt of very soft cotton, and a long leather coat, also black. His feet were shod in heavy boots.

The fairy godmother smiled and nodded with approval. “Okay, the wardrobe is done. Now we need transportation.”

“Transportation?”

“You can’t arrive at a royal ball on foot, Spike.”

He decided it was better just to play along instead of interrogating her. At least he wasn’t bored. So he followed her out of the parlor and through the kitchen, where she grabbed an empty bottle of whiskey off the table. In the back garden, she frowned thoughtfully at the corpse that had been Angelus and Darla’s dinner the previous night: another priest by the look of him. That tosser Angelus had no imagination.

The fairy set the bottle on the ground near the body. There was more spell-casting and wand-waving, and with a tremendous bang the bottle was transformed into an elegant carriage. As Spike stood and gaped, the priest rose to his feet—none too gracefully—and scrambled on board the carriage. With another wave of the wand his somber black suit and white collar were gone, replaced by an ornate coachman’s kit.

“What …” said Spike.

The fairy grinned. “Told you I can do zombies. Now, let’s see. Horses …” She looked about the garden, but of course no equines appeared. She poked her wand at some spiderwebs that were tucked under the eaves. Two large black spiders descended to the grass and, as Spike watched, changed into fine—if slightly leggy—black steeds, already harnessed in place.

Spike was beginning to enjoy himself. He looked at the girl expectantly. “One more thing,” she said. She pointed the wand at him and said a few words.

An explosion occurred under his skin and he toppled over. She leaned down and dragged him upright—she was loads stronger than she looked. “What … what …” he stuttered again, his hand on his chest, over his heart. His beating heart.

“I can make a vamp humanish. You’ll fit in better at the ball that way. But you’re only alive for a few hours. When the sun rises, you’ll be back with the fangs and blood-swigging. And you have to come right back here, to this house, or else, well, poof!” She waved her arms wildly, which made him jump. “Even a fairy’s magics have limits.”

She waved at the carriage. “Climb on up.” She swatted his bottom with the wand and he jumped again. He didn’t want her transforming his arse! But she simply seemed to want to hurry him along, because then she gestured at the carriage again. “Up you go.”

“But … how will going to a bloody dance allow me to see Xander?”

“Because he’s there, of course! So go and have a good time. But remember to be home before sunrise, ’cause I can’t uncrisp a roasted vampire.”

He still wasn’t convinced that he hadn’t gone insane. But he climbed onto the former bottle and sat on a plush seat. The carriage began to move, rattling down the garden, past the mews and out into the street. Darla had chosen a house in a posh neighborhood and the palace wasn’t far away. It wasn’t the finest palace Spike had seen—they were in a mediocre kingdom at best—but it was fine enough, with columns of stone and fine statuary adorning the broad front stairs. Lights sparkled merrily.

The carriage drew to a halt and servants immediately darted forward to greet it. Just as it occurred to Spike to be worried over his lack of an invite, a card materialized in his hand. He peered at it quickly, smiled, and handed it to one of the servants. The servant bowed and ushered him to the stairs. Spike could hear the music already, and the sounds of many voices talking at once.

He was met at the front doors by another servant, who bowed and then led him up a grand stairway, down a short hall, and to another set of doors. Not surprisingly, Spike found himself in a huge ballroom. The floor was polished marble and where the ceiling wasn’t gilded it was painted with elaborate frescoes. Huge oil paintings adorned the walls and statues were tucked into niches. The room’s columns had been wrapped with vines and flowers. An orchestra was playing at one end of the room; a great many people were dancing there. At the other end, vast tables had been piled with wines and foods.

It was all a bit overwhelming.

Nobody paid Spike much attention, other than throwing a few scornful glances in his direction. There was no sign of Xander, nor of Angelus and Darla. Spike was suddenly very hungry, so he grabbed a piece of cake from one of the tables, scowling at the servant who wanted him to use a plate and fork. Spike clomped across the room to a door ajar. As he’d hoped, the door led to a long balcony that overlooked the palace’s elaborate gardens. He leaned on the stone railing, looking down at a burbling fountain, licking the cake crumbs from his fingers.

“You have the right idea,” said a familiar voice.

Spike spun around.

It was Xander, of course, the man of his dreams made flesh and blood. Xander’s hair was still shaggy and his eye still covered, but instead of rough workman’s kit he wore a fine suit that flattered his muscular frame and brought out the little glints of gold in his eye. Ribbons and medals were affixed to his chest. He was grinning. “Man, I hate these things. The music sucks and my shirt collar’s itchy. I’d rather just sit down and have a couple pints of ale.”

“Uh,” was Spike’s intelligent response.

Fortunately, Xander didn’t seem put off. If anything, his smile broadened. “Have we met before? ’Cause I can’t quite place you—and you’re pretty distinctive, pal—but I feel like I know you. Oh. I’m Xander, obviously. Well, Prince Alexander, but that’s kinda formal for my taste.”

Spike shook his head. He knew this man, and not just from his dreams. He was certain of it. But he couldn’t imagine how. It wasn’t as if he often met royalty. “ ’M Spike,” he finally said. “Dunno if we’ve met. Perhaps.”

“Well, I’m glad we’ve met now, anyway.” Xander came a few steps closer and stood next to him. Very close but not quite touching. They both leaned forward on the railing, stealing glances at one another. “Maybe you’ve been to some of the other palace shindigs?” Xander asked.

“No.”

“Yeah. You don’t really look the shindig type. Which is a compliment, by the way. Me, I get stuck going to them all the time. The parents want me to hook up with an eligible maiden. Which is so not gonna happen. Not my style.”

Spike turned and looked at him straight on. “What is your style then?”

Xander turned too, closed the short distance between them, and took Spike’s coat lapels in his hands. “You,” he said, and then he leaned in for a kiss.

It was every bit as nice as the dream kisses had been. Nicer, perhaps: Xander tasted of wine and chocolate. In fact, the kiss was nice enough that Spike stopped worrying about his daft swooning over a one-eyed human bloke, and he simply let himself swoon.

It was Xander who broke the kiss, breathless and flushed. “Follow me,” he said. Wordlessly, Spike did. They re-entered the ballroom, winding their way through clots of people who stood and stared. A few of them tried to get Xander’s attention, but he simply smiled and nodded then continued on his way. Spike caught sight of Angelus and Darla. They both looked flabbergasted and furious, but at that moment Spike didn’t care.

Xander and Spike left the ballroom and climbed a set of stairs—more modest than those of the entrance hall—and then more yet, finally walking down a long hallway that was empty except for a few moth-eaten tapestries. Xander pulled a door open and tugged Spike inside.

They weren’t in a bedchamber, as Spike had half-expected. Instead, they were in a small library that was crammed with shelves. Everything was very dusty. The gaslights flickered softly, not doing a very good job of illuminating the room. But that was fine, because Xander was already pressed up against Spike, his arms wrapped tightly about Spike’s middle. “Nobody ever comes in here,” Xander whispered in his ear.

Spike considered making a bad joke about coming. Luckily, Xander stopped him with another kiss.

The kiss soon evolved into groping, and the groping became stripping, until they were both naked—Spike’s black clothing scattered amongst Xander’s posh suit. They spent some time stroking bare skin and rubbing up against one another. Xander interrupted another thorough snogging to laugh softly. “I don’t normally do this. Or, like, never. Hook up with strangers, I mean. It’s only … you don’t feel like a stranger. It’s like I’ve known you for years.”

“I know,” said Spike. “As if we’ve done this before, yeah? I know where to touch you, just how to make you beg or scream. How could I know that?”

“I have no idea. But, um, I’m willing for you to demonstrate.”

Spike did. They didn’t have any slick and neither of them was willing to wait for Xander to fetch some. So they ended up on the floor, Xander on his back and Spike astride him, each of them with the other’s cock in his mouth. Spike could nearly have climaxed just from the taste of the boy’s precome, from the scent of him as Spike pressed his nose into crisp hairs. When Xander slid a spit-lubed finger into Spike’s sphincter, Spike reciprocated, and within minutes they were both coming. Spike shouted. Xander swore.

Spike slowly rolled off and twisted himself around so they could kiss. He liked tasting himself on Xander’s tongue. But they had knocked a few books off the shelves as they undressed, and Xander groaned a little and pulled a largish volume out from under his back. “So not comfortable,” he complained, tossing it aside.

They put their clothes on reluctantly, much more slowly than they’d taken them off. They stopped often to kiss. Spike got frustrated with the complicated laces on his boots. “Bugger this,” he grumbled and left them untied.

They walked hand in hand back to the ballroom, and then Xander astounded Spike by tugging him in front of the orchestra for a waltz. He allowed Spike to lead. After that there was a gavotte and a polonaise, and although William had always felt like an idiot when he was forced to dance, Spike was having a brilliant time and Xander seemed to be as well. They ignored the gaping guests and kicked off their boots when their feet got sore and kept right on dancing. Spike wished he could simply gather Xander in his arms and press up close, but who danced like that? This was good enough, at any rate. He was with his boy.

But time ticked by, as it always does; and as Spike spun in the midst of another waltz he caught a glimpse of the sky outside the window. It might have been his imagination, but it looked as if the black was lightening just a bit. Most of the guests had gone long before and the musicians were knackered. He did the exact opposite of his desire: he pulled away from Xander.

“What’s the matter?” Xander asked. “Need a breather? Maybe some snacks?”

Spike took a step backwards. “No. No, I … I have to go.”

“Go? No! The night is young. Okay, the night is actually really old, but you can still stay. Stay here, Spike. Please.” Xander held out his hands and looked as if he might cry.

“Can’t,” Spike replied, and he turned and ran. His bare feet slapped across the marble floor, across fine rugs on the stairs and in the hallway. Then he was outside and the cobblestones were slippery, but he picked up more speed. He heard Xander calling his name, far behind him, but he kept on going. The water in his eyes was just irritation from the wind.

His heart stopped beating as he turned the corner near the house Darla had chosen, and he nearly fell. He felt the exposed bits of his skin begin to char. He ran even faster and lurched in through the front door just as his hair was about to burst into flames.

Angelus was waiting for him. Perhaps Darla had gone to sleep already, or perhaps she’d picked up a pretty boy at the ball and taken him to her bed. She liked to play with her food that way. In any case, Angelus was alone and he was not happy. While Spike was still trying to stop the smoldering, Angelus grabbed him and began to tear the clothing from Spike’s body. The larger vampire let loose a steady string of curses, and Spike’s struggles were useless. As soon as Spike was naked, Angelus grabbed him by the scruff of the neck and propelled him down the stairs and into the cellar. Spike almost got free as Angelus was attempting to chain him up, but in the end Angelus was stronger. Spike was caught and hung from the wall by his wrists, his legs spread wide and manacled in place. His nose was pressed to the rough bricks.

Spike wasn’t at all surprised when Angelus rammed his cock into Spike’s unprepared hole. “Sneakin’ dirty little bugger,” Angelus snarled into Spike’s ear. “Thought ye could get away with somethin’, did ye? Thought ye were smarter than me.”

“I am,” Spike said, because Angelus was already nearly as furious as he could get. Maybe in his rage the wanker would just dust him and be done with it.

But Angelus only growled and pounded Spike’s tender passage. At some point he must have vamped out, because his fangs ripped into the side of Spike’s neck and Spike felt his remaining strength fading away.

Angelus pulled his cock and fangs away before Spike lost consciousness. He stuffed some filthy rags in Spike’s mouth and tied them in place. “I’ll be punishin’ ye properly tonight,” Angelus snapped. He stomped away, leaving Spike hanging helplessly in the dark.

It was a very long day. Spike’s shoulders ached and then screamed with pain, his abused arse and neck throbbed, and he was so bloody hungry. He tried to sleep and couldn’t manage it. He kept thinking about Xander. Prince Alexander! How had he appeared in Spike’s dreams and why were they so drawn to one another? Why, even now, did Spike feel as if he would be safe and happy if Xander would simply appear and take Spike in his arms? Spike knew he was missing something, some important clue, some vital piece of the puzzle, but he couldn’t suss it out.

Well, it didn’t matter, he told himself philosophically. Angelus and possibly Darla would be after him shortly, and if they didn’t dust him they would doubtless do something that would ensure he’d never escape again. Angelus had threatened to do so loads of times. He’d run his big hands over Spike’s skin and described in detail how he would cut off Spike’s cock and balls, how he’d pop out his eyes with a spoon and tear out his tongue and fangs. How he’d pull off Spike’s limbs the way a child might pull the legs off a fly, until there was nothing left of Spike but a mutilated mess. Spike fervently hoped that he’d lose his sanity very quickly; it seemed to be rather tenuously attached as it was.

And then he heard voices.

Angelus had been angry or drunk enough that he left the cellar door open, so Spike could hear quite clearly as the conversation entered the parlor.

“—what an honor it is to have you in our home.” That was Darla in her smoothest, most unctuous tones.

“We won’t keep you for long, madam.” Spike jerked and twisted on his chains, because that voice was unmistakably his Xander. Spike tried to shout to him, but nothing came through the gag in his mouth but a muffled groan. Christ, what if Xander got himself killed?

Xander himself sounded oblivious to the danger. “I was hoping you could help me with something.”

“Of course!” Darla exclaimed. “We’d be delighted. We had a wonderful time last night.”

“And that’s kinda what I needed help with. You, um, probably noticed this guy … I was dancing with him. Weird clothes, killer cheekbones …”

“Yes.” Darla sounded considerably less enthusiastic about this topic. “I suppose we did see him.”

“Great! ’Cause now I can’t find him, and I really want to. He, um, left his shoes. See?”

“We don’t know him,” Angelus growled.

“Are you sure? ’Cause my people said they thought he ran this way, and I’ve tried most of the other houses. Maybe he’s a neighbor? Look, he’s not in trouble or anything. I just want to see him. And give him back his boots.”

“I told ye. We don’t know him.” It sounded as if Angelus was getting impatient, which was never good.

“Hey! That’s the prince you’re talking to. Be polite.” That was a woman’s voice, one that Spike didn’t recognize. Whoever she was, she sounded angry.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness.” Darla again. “I’m afraid Liam woke up in a terrible mood today. Family troubles.”

“I know how that goes. Even royal families can be a royal pain in the ass sometimes. I’ll leave you to it, then. Just, if you see this guy, please tell him I’m looking for him. He calls himself Spike, by the way.”

“Stupid feckin’ name,” Angelus mumbled, but loud enough even for Spike to hear.

Apparently Xander’s female companion heard as well. “I told you once already, jerkface. Be respectful.”

“I’ll show ye respect, all right!”

Someone shrieked and someone else cried out. Footsteps pounded as some sort of scuffle ensued, complete with muffled shouts. Spike had a sudden vivid mental image of Xander spread out on Darla’s precious rug, his throat ripped wide open, his pretty brown eye sightless.

“NO!” Spike yelled into the gag. And perhaps his fairy godmother was still hiding somewhere, because when Spike gave a desperate yank with his arms, the chains gave and he fell backwards onto the dirt floor, twisting his joints painfully. He didn’t pause, though; he simply jerked on the cuffs at his ankles and they gave too. Moving awkwardly and trying to unfasten the gag as he went, Spike ran up the stairs.

What he saw in the parlor froze him in his tracks. There was no sign of Darla at all, save for a suspicious-looking pile of dust in the middle of the room. Angelus was flat on his back, his demon face ugly with fury. A small young woman with her hair in a blonde queue was kneeling on Angelus’s stomach, the point of a sharp stake digging into his chest.

Xander seemed unharmed and not even especially ruffled, as if he encountered vampires all the time. But when he caught sight of Spike his face drained of color. “Spike!” he cried and ran across the room.

“Don’t!” the girl on Angelus’s chest screamed, stopping Xander in his tracks. “He’s one of them, Xan.”

Xander looked at Spike, wide-eyed. “You’re … you’re a vampire?”

No point in lying. “Yeah.” Spike looked down at his feet and waited to be staked.

But Xander simply walked over until he was very close. “What about … what about last night? You could have eaten me and you didn’t. Um, not in a fatal sort of way, anyway.”

“Was a spell. Made me a man for a few hours.” Spike looked up at Xander’s face. “But I wouldn’t have harmed you anyhow. I … I know it sounds mad. But I love you.”

Xander’s face relaxed into a small smile. He gently grasped Spike’s biceps. “Yeah, it’s crazy. But I love you too.”

“Hey, guys,” said the girl. “Smooshiness later. Big, pissed-off vamp right now.”

Xander glanced at the girl. “That’s Buffy. She’s my chief of security.”

“She appears very good at it,” Spike responded, a trifle shakily.

Xander leaned in close to whisper, “She’s a vampire slayer.”

“Oh.”

Then Xander’s hands were smoothing at Spike’s skin, his fingertips brushing over the still-gaping wound at Spike’s throat, then moving down to touch the irons that were still locked around Spike’s wrists. “Did he do this to you, Spike?”

“Yeah.”

Xander looked back over his shoulder at Buffy. “Dust him.”

“No! Wait!” Spike yelled.

“You want me to torture him a little first?” Buffy asked. She didn’t look unhappy at the prospect.

Spike had to think about that for a moment. “No, I expect not. He’s my Sire, yeah? A right bastard, but … family.”

Xander kissed Spike’s cheek. Then he turned and stood over Angelus, prodding his head slightly with one toe. “Here’s the deal. The sun just set, so you’re gonna get your wide ass out of my kingdom pronto. If I see one strand of your stupid hair again, I’m gonna let the Buffster do anything she wants to you. Or, you know, maybe Spike’ll want a little payback. Good enough for you, Spike?”

Spike managed to smirk at Angelus. “Brilliant, love.”

With a final little dig of her stake, Buffy climbed off Angelus. He rose to his feet and backed away from her, then looked at Spike, and finally at Xander and Buffy. He roared, spun around, and stomped across the parlor and out the front door.

Xander walked back to Spike and folded his arms around him. It felt lovelier than Spike had hoped for. Felt like home. “Let’s go back to the palace,” Xander said. “Get you patched up and bathed—you wouldn’t mind if I gave you a bath, would you?—and I bet we can get some servants to donate some platelets. Hell, I’ll donate some myself.”

Spike’s stomach rumbled and, against all reason, his cock began to harden.

Xander must have felt it against his hip, because he chuckled. “And clothes. Clothes would be of the good. While we’re in public, anyway.”

“But … I’m a demon, love. A monster. You can’t want me.”

“You’re all I want, Spike.”

Spike’s heart almost began to beat again. He stopped wondering why he needed this man, why he loved him. He simply did, and that was good enough. He leaned his forehead against Xander’s and sighed happily.

“Let’s go,” said Xander. “And, um, about that monster thing? Let me tell you about this little monthly problem I have.”


	4. Chapter 4

Four

 

It was a brilliant time to be a vampire. All of Europe was burning it seemed, with neighboring nations turned against one another. It was like hunting in a zoological park, the prey practically caged up for the killing. Spike and Drusilla ate whomever they chose without fearing detection, they slept wherever they pleased, they took whatever they wanted.

Dru was ecstatic. She swayed from place to place, drunk from a surfeit of fresh young blood, creating odd little shrines in the rubble and luring orphans away into alleys. She wore blood-spattered silks and crusted diamonds. She shagged often—dazed soldiers, weary refugees, well-fed demons. And she’d ride Spike hard, leaving bloody furrows in his skin with her fingernails, screaming out her climaxes to the stars.

Spike should have been happy as well, but he wasn’t. Something was wrong. There had been those strangely vivid dreams about that Xander bloke. But more than that, there was the conviction deep inside him that he needed something, that he was meant to be doing something aside from fucking and fighting and feeding. Problem was, he hadn’t any idea what that something was.

His uncertainty made him restless. He wandered half-destroyed cities and meandered through fields where nothing had been sown. He was especially drawn to libraries and bookshops, but whatever it was he was seeking, he didn’t find it there either.

One evening somewhere in central Europe—with the ever-shifting borders, he’d long since stopped caring what a country was called on a particular day—he and Dru fed off a pair of tubercular spinsters, and then Drusilla went tripping down the pavement. Searching for pixies, she said. Spike looked around at the remains of a village that had perhaps been a market town before the war. There was a large main square with a shattered fountain. A pub still in operation just off the square served swill that tasted more like vinegar than wine and the ales were watered, but it had a monopoly and the landlord spoke passable English. Spike had visited there the last three nights and he went again tonight. He fancied of a bit of sane company, even if it was human.

There were only two other customers that night: an old woman in the corner who scowled and made the sign of the evil eye at him, and a young man in a worn uniform. The soldier, big and broad, had an empty shirtsleeve pinned to his shoulder. He had sandy-colored hair that fell in his face.

“Glass of something,” Spike said to the landlord, sitting on a slightly wobbly chair. The landlord nodded and poured, then set the glass on the table in front of Spike. Spike pulled a pair of gold earrings from his pocket and set them next to the glass. “How much will these get me?”

The landlord picked the earrings up, squinted at them, weighed them in his palm. “Three more.”

“Lovely. Then keep on pouring, yeah?”

Spike had finished the first glass and was starting the second when the soldier stood, limped across the floor, and sat opposite him. He brought his own glass with. “English?” the man asked.

“Once upon a time.”

The man held out his remaining hand, which was his left. “Radoslav.”

After a moment’s hesitation, Spike shook it. “Spike.”

“What is an Englishman doing here, now?”

Spike shrugged. “Tourism.” Then he tilted his head a bit. “You speak the lingo well enough.”

“I was a student in Oxford, before the war. I returned to fight for my country.” Radoslav laughed humorlessly. “You see how that turned out.”

“ ’M a Cambridge man myself.”

Radoslav smiled and took a sip of his beer. “I liked England, but I love my homeland. This used to be a beautiful place. The crops were bountiful and the cattle were fat. The women, oh, the women, my friend!” He shook his head. “They are all dead now, or widows in black.”

“The war will end someday. They always do.”

“Perhaps. But what will be left when it does?”

Spike shrugged again, downed his drink, and waited for a refill. “There’s always someone to come sweep up the ashes. Always someone to rebuild—and then someone else to tear things down again. Way of the world, innit?”

“You seem … wise for your years, Spike.”

“Seen a lot, haven’t I?” He decided to change the subject. “Was walking through the woods the other night. The ones on the other side of the hill.”

“Nobody goes in those woods. Not even soldiers. Especially not at night.”

Spike smiled easily. “I did.”

Radoslav gave him a careful look, but didn’t pursue the matter. A bloke saw loads of odd things during a war, and learned when it was better not to pry. Perhaps Radoslav had even seen scarier things than a vampire.

“So I was walking through the woods,” Spike continued, “and in the center of them was this … thing. Bloody strange.”

“A blackberry bramble,” Radoslav said.

“Yeah. Biggest one I’ve ever seen, and right in the middle of the trees. Why?”

“There is a legend.”

Spike waved the landlord over and plunked a necklace on the table. “You tell the tale and I’ll buy,” he said to Radoslav.

Radoslav grinned. “Excellent. My grandmother told me this story when I was very small.”

Spike looked significantly at the soldier’s large frame. “Don’t reckon you were ever small, mate.”

“Well, smaller than I am now. My grandmother told me that once this was the center of a kingdom. My town was here, and the king and queen had a castle nearby, surrounded by woods because the king liked to hunt. And a long-ago king and queen had a baby, a beautiful son. Prince Aleksandar.”

“Aleksandar?” Spike asked. He had a funny feeling in the pit of his stomach.

“Yes, that is what she told me. And when the prince was born, the king and queen invited all the important local people—the mayor and the priests and the wealthier merchants. And they invited some of the forest folk as well. You see? We are still simple people here, and we believe in witches and fairies and other myths.”

“ ’T’s a big world, mate. Mysteries stroll by right under people’s noses and most never notice.”

Radoslav downed another glass of ale. “And some of these mysteries might even buy an old soldier a drink, perhaps. So the king and queen invited some of these … others. And the prince was given many gifts. But there was one who was not invited to the castle, a demon named Anyanka. She was beautiful but vengeful. She came to see the infant anyway, and when it was her turn she gave him a curse instead of a gift: soon after the prince grew up he would be pricked by a poisoned spindle and would die.

“Fortunately, one witch had yet to give her gift. So when Anyanka was finished, this witch stepped forward and altered the curse a little. She could not remove it entirely, but she said instead of death, Aleksandar would fall into a deep sleep that would last for centuries, until he was rescued by his true love.”

“Hard to find a true love when you’re snoring, innit?” asked Spike.

“Perhaps. The king banned all looms and spindles, and the prince’s childhood was uneventful. He grew into a fine man, kind-hearted and brave. He lost an eye in a battle, but—”

“Hold on!” Spike said in a near-squawk. “An eye?”

“Yes,” said Radoslav with a nod. “Unfortunate, but it could have been worse.” He gave a wry glance at his own missing right arm.

Spike felt slightly dizzy, and not from the bad wine. He still didn’t understand what was happening to him, but he was bloody well going to find out. With an effort, he calmed himself. “So what happened to him?”

“After the war he returned to the castle and helped his parents rule. But one day Anyanka slipped into the castle disguised as a peddler, and she found the prince. She begged him to buy her wares. Of course he reached into her basket, and there was a spindle. Poisoned. He fell immediately asleep and couldn’t be awakened. His grieving parents put him in bed, and then every man, woman, and child in the castle fell asleep as well. Even the animals, the horses and the dogs and the cats, the mice that crept in the kitchens. Over the years, a great blackberry bramble grew over the castle, covering it entirely. And when a few hardy young adventurers tried to make their way through, every one of them was pierced by the thorns and died.” As he finished his tale, Radoslav looked genuinely sorrowful, as if these were people he had known.

“Perhaps the prince was better off asleep. Never aging, never dying,” Spike said.

“Yes, but is immortality so valuable if one spends it alone?”

Spike didn’t have an answer for that.

He and Radoslav drank more. Their discussion turned to England and then to literature, and they only stopped when the old woman was long gone and Spike was out of gold. Spike walked Radoslav home—it was only a few blocks—and they paused outside the man’s half-crumbled house. “There are ways to escape this place,” Spike said. “Ways to move on.”

Radoslav smiled sadly. “Thank you. But I think this is my home. I will stay.”

Spike nodded at him and went off in search of Dru.

 

***

 

Spike tried to sleep during the day, but couldn’t. Instead, he paced the uneven floors of the small house in which they had been staying. Drusilla didn’t care; she slept like the dead. But then she woke just before sunset, and she caught at his arm before he could slip out the door. “Don’t leave me, my Spike.”

“I’ve … an errand to run tonight. ’M sure you can find a way to keep yourself busy.”

“The words swirl about you like a storm, my dark knight. Don’t let them carry you away from me.”

He used his free hand to pat her shoulder while he squirmed out of her grip. “This is something I have to do, pet.”

She nodded slowly, sadly. “Your heart has gone to another.”

“I’ll always love you,” he said, because it was true.

“But my happily ever after isn’t yours.” She looked intently at his face, and for a moment he was certain she was going to explain what was going on, and that she was going to do it in a way that would make bloody sense. But then she looked away again and murmured something about needing to walk widdershins around gravestones. She slipped past him through the open door and was gone.

Spike set out for the forest.

As on his previous visit, as soon as he stepped among the trees he was convinced that nobody else had entered the woods in a very long time. The underbrush was heavy, snarled with fallen logs and rotten stumps, and small creatures scuttled furtively through the leaves and branches. He couldn’t see the sky at all through the canopy above him.

Thick as the forest was, it was not especially large, so even with having to fight his way over, under, and around debris, it didn’t take him long to get to the edge of the bramble. Here the sky was clearly visible, as dark as spilled ink. Spike spent ages simply staring at the snarl of thorns, wondering how the bloody hell he was going to get through it. It never occurred to him, however, to simply walk away.

The minute he pushed his way into the vines, the bramble swallowed him up. Long thorns tore at him, and he wished he was wearing that kit the fairy godmother had given him in his dream. Leather and denim would have been better protection than cotton and wool. Soon his clothing and his skin were in tatters. The blood running down his face was blinding him anyway, so he closed his eyes tightly and grabbed blindly, fighting his way through what felt like a forest of claws. A living forest, because the vines moved like arms, wrapping themselves around him, flailing at his face and body. When one of them actually impaled him in the belly, he realized that a well-placed stab might actually dust him—the vines were woody, after all—and he redoubled his efforts.

He was weak and exhausted by the time he bumped up against a stone wall. The bramble continued to savage him, but he dug his fingertips into crumbling mortar and scrambled painfully upward. After what felt like centuries, he reached the top; then he rolled off, landing inside the wall with a bone-jarring thump. He lay there for ages, grateful to at least be free of the fucking thorns.

When he stood up, he realized that he no longer wore a scrap of clothing except for his shoes. He kicked them off and looked about. He was in a narrow bit where weeds had grown amongst the cobblestones. A second wall, shorter than the first, was in front of him. He assumed that if he walked long enough he’d come to a gate, but there was no guarantee that the portcullis had been left open. So once again he climbed the stone; at least it was easier without the vines trying to drag him down.

The castle courtyard was on the other side of the wall. Spike dropped down to it inelegantly. Human and animal bodies were scattered everywhere, as were carts and overturned baskets and piles of various debris. But when Spike investigated a bit more closely, he saw that the people and beasts were asleep, not dead. Spike’s stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn’t fed that night; he needed to mend his wounds as well. So he knelt next to a lumpy man who still clutched a loaf of bread under one arm, and he dropped his fangs. But then it occurred to him that Xander—or Prince Aleksandar—wouldn’t be very pleased with him for killing off his baker, so instead Spike found a slumbering ox still tethered to its toppled cart, and he drank from it instead. Its blood tasted a bit odd, but not unpleasantly so. And since oxen have loads of blood, the animal was still dreaming peaceful bovine dreams when Spike pulled away, his stomach nice and full.

The layout of the castle was a bit confusing, with buildings and doorways wherever someone had thought over the centuries to add them. Spike poked about for some time, stepping over sleeping people as he went, and eventually he found a large wooden door that had been left ajar. The inside looked like a museum, with paintings and rugs and tapestries, with big vases and statues and various other adornments. Surprisingly, nothing was dusty; the place looked as if everyone had settled down for a kip just a few hours ago.

Spike ascended a stone staircase and began to peek into rooms. It was in the last room, the one at the end of the hallway, that he found Xander stretched out on a tall, wide bed. An embroidered coverlet was pulled up to his chest, but his bare arms were revealed, his wrists crossed over his torso. Both eyes were closed, but one of them had a sort of sunken appearance. His chest rose and fell slowly, and his sensuous mouth was curved slightly upward as if he were having a pleasant dream.

“Xander?” Spike whispered. There was no response, of course. Spike hadn’t expected one. But he knew with every fiber of his being that the man he saw before him was his, body and soul.

Spike crept forward and settled a hand on Xander’s bare shoulder. Xander was bed-warm, his skin soft. He didn’t react to the contact. So Spike leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on those curved lips.

But still nothing happened.

Doubt trickled into Spike’s head. Perhaps he wasn’t Prince Aleksandar’s true love. No. No, that couldn’t be true. It was going to take more than a kiss, that was all.

Moving slowly, Spike drew the blankets off Xander’s still form. Xander was naked, his big, soft cock nestled against a strong thigh. Spike knew exactly what that cock tasted like, what it felt like in his hand, in his mouth, in his arse. He leaned down again to snuffle at the patch of dark hairs between Xander’s legs, and he knew that scent as well; it made Spike instantly and achingly hard.

A human might have paused to consider the moral implications, but Spike was a demon. Consent had never been an issue for him before. Besides, he was as familiar with the body on his bed as he was with his own. He didn’t understand how or when, but he knew Xander belonged to him—and he belonged to Xander—and he knew that they had made love many times before.

With a small grunt of effort, he rolled Xander onto his belly. That revealed the man’s fine arse, which Spike spent several minutes stroking and squeezing. Finally, however, he spread Xander’s legs as wide as they would go and crawled between them. Xander didn’t move as Spike licked at his scrotum and perineum, and then tongued delicately around his tight little pucker. But when Spike’s tongue actually entered the ring of muscle he sensed a slight unevenness in Xander’s breathing, a small hitch and a sigh. Spike smiled to himself and moved his tongue in and out, savoring the familiar flavor of his boy.

When the muscles felt softer, Spike inserted two moistened fingers instead. This time he was certain that Xander moaned slightly, and he thought that Xander might also have moved his hips infinitesimally back, impaling himself slightly more on Spike’s digits. While Spike worked his fingers in and out, he licked at the swell of Xander’s buttocks, at the knobs of his lower spine. Xander was salty and a bit soapy, as if he’d bathed not too long ago.

An echo of a memory told Spike that there were times when he’d spent hours doing nothing but touching and tasting his boy, driving Xander and himself mad with need. But this was not to be one of those times. Spike snaked his free hand underneath Xander and was delighted to discover that Xander was hard. With a slight cackle of glee, Spike withdrew his fingers and poised himself over Xander’s prone body. And then, as exquisitely slowly as he could manage, he pressed his cock into that welcoming heat.

Xander exhaled loudly and spread his legs a bit wider, but still wasn’t awake. So Spike began to move, pulling himself nearly all the way out and then fully sheathing himself again. “Xander,” he panted. “Pet? Love?”

No answer apart from a muffled groan.

Spike sped his movements and knew he wouldn’t last long thrusting into that tight channel. And then inspiration—and temptation—struck. Still flexing his hips, he lowered himself completely onto Xander’s back, pushed a few stray hairs out of the way, and bit Xander’s neck. Not an artery or a major vein; the last thing he wanted was to kill his boy. No, he simply sank the tips of his fangs into the tender nape of Xander’s neck, feeling the skin pop and give, crying out at the wonderful taste of the blood when it reached his tongue.

Xander cried out as well, and he rose up on his knees, now shifting his body in earnest to meet Spike’s thrusts. Spike reached underneath and wrapped a hand around Xander’s wet shaft. That was enough, because seconds later Xander shuddered and came, and when his interior muscles spasmed around Spike, the vampire came as well, muffling his howl against Xander’s broad back.

Spike didn’t want to move out of Xander—he felt so bloody good!—but Xander was making small, confused sounds. So Spike rolled to the side. Xander blinked at him. “Sp-Spike?” he croaked.

“You know me.”

“I … I … what … I don’t understand.”

Spike couldn’t help but stroke his boy’s face with his fingertips. “What do you remember?”

“I’m … There was a curse. A spindle. And … I fell asleep.”

“Who are you, pet?”

“Prince Aleksandar. Xander. Yours. I’m yours, aren’t I? But how?”

Sounds began to reach Spike’s ears as the castle’s other residents woke up. Matters would likely become very hectic and confusing within a few minutes. “You’re mine,” he confirmed. “There’s an enchantment of some sort, I expect. And not just Anyanka’s. Something very strange is happening to us.”

“I know. But … I’m pretty sure it’s not the first time we’ve experienced weirdness.” Xander sat up, still looking groggy. He pulled on Spike until he was sitting as well. “You just rescued me, didn’t you?”

“I expect I did.”

“Is that how you got all scraped up?” He ran a thumb over the healing bramble gouges on Spike’s chest. Spike had nearly forgotten he was injured.

“Yeah,” Spike answered. “But I’ll mend soon enough. I’m—”

“A vampire. You’re a vampire, aren’t you?” Xander shook his head in wonder. “I’m in love with a vampire.”

“And a vamp’s in love with you,” Spike added.

Xander grinned widely. “You know, we have a wizard. Maybe he can help us figure out what’s going on. ’Cause whatever the hell the problem is, I’m positive I don’t wanna lose you.”

Spike climbed off the mattress and held a hand out to Xander. “Right then. Find us some clothes and we’re off to see the wizard.”


	5. Chapter 5

Five

 

The shop was tucked away in an alley, almost hidden between a dead-end passageway and a store that sold musical instruments. Normally, Spike would have walked on by—he didn’t like mojo, didn’t trust it. But now, as soon as he realized what sort of shop it was, he flung the door open and marched inside. The shopkeeper looked up at him and Drusilla with surprise and slight alarm.

“Puedo ayudarse?” said the shopkeeper. He was middle-aged, his dark hair streaked with gray, and he was thin apart from a little potbelly.

“English, mate.” Spike could manage Spanish if necessary, but given the importance of the matter at hand, wanted to avoid miscommunication.

“Oh, of course, señor. How may I help you?”

While Dru wandered the aisles, running her finger over talismans and worn books and muttering at statuettes, Spike marched over to the proprietor. “ ’M not meant to be here. ’T’s an enchantment, I expect.”

The man blinked. “Where are you supposed to be?”

“I … I’m not sure. Somewhere else. There’s this bloke, you see. Xander. And he’s mine. I keep finding him in castles and so on, but then I move on, and in any case none of it is real. At least, I don’t think so.”

The shopkeeper looked deeply puzzled, and Spike realized he sounded barmier than Dru ever did. He briefly wondered if she were as certain about her delusions as he was about his own ravings. He took a deep breath and tried again. “We were going to see a wizard, Xan and I were. He was going to explain what’s happening. Why I keep having these dreams that aren’t dreams. But before we could get to him I woke up again, see, and now I’m here. No wizard.”

“So … you believe you are … from another place, yes? Another reality?”

“Yes! Or … I dunno. ’T’s all muddled up in here.” He tapped the side of his head. “But I think it’s to do with fairy tales.”

The shopkeeper shook his head. “I am afraid I know nothing of these matters. But I know someone who might. He is quite knowledgeable about the arcane.”

“Lovely. Where is he?”

“Several miles from the city. Here, I will write directions to find him.”

Spike waited impatiently while the man scribbled on a scrap of brown paper. In the meantime, Dru came swaying over, something clutched in her hand. “I fancy a pressie, my Spike. Will you give me one? You haven’t for ever so long.”

“Two nights ago, love. That cat you wanted so badly.”

She hissed. “Nasty thing. It bit me and ran away. I don’t think I like cats. Only kittens.”

“I’ll find you a kitten then,” he said with a sigh.

“No, I want this.” She held up the object, which turned out to be a hand mirror with an ornate silver frame. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“ ’T’s lovely, pet. But, erm, perhaps not very useful.” He gave the shopkeeper a sidelong glance, but the man was still writing.

“I want it,” Dru said with a pout.

“Then it shall be yours, my princess.” Spike took the mirror from her and set it on the counter. The man handed him the scrap of paper, which Spike tucked in his pocket for later. “How much?” Spike asked. He could have simply killed the shopkeeper and taken whatever he wanted, but he wasn’t especially hungry, and for some reason the idea of murder made him suddenly uneasy.

“Eight thousand pesetas.”

It seemed a bloody lot of money for a useless mirror, but a small price to keep Dru momentarily content. Spike handed over some bills, Dru snatched up the mirror, and they left the shop.

Spike meant to set off right away in search of the bloke who knew about magics, but Dru was in one of her clingy moods, hanging on his arm and nattering about her usual nonsense. So instead they wandered down to the waterfront, and stood there for ages watching the waves while Dru had conversations with invisible fishes. It was nearly dawn before they returned to their stolen flat, a tiny place near a park. Dru had chosen the flat—and eaten its owner—but Spike quite liked it as well because it was filled with books. So when they got home he grabbed a stack of volumes more or less at random and collapsed into an armchair.

Dru spun and danced about the room, admiring her nonexistent reflection in the mirror.

 

***

 

For once, it was Drusilla who woke up first, well before the sun set. When Spike opened his eyes, she was sitting on a little chair beside the bed, glaring at him. She held the mirror in one hand.

“What’s the matter, princess?” asked Spike, standing and stretching. Sometimes if he moved his muscles just right, showing off his body in the lamplight, he could charm Dru out of a foul mood and into bed. He didn’t especially want to shag her at the moment, but he also didn’t want to waste time placating her. But his efforts were in vain, because the more he preened, the darker her face grew.

“Am I not pretty?” she asked him.

“Of course you are. Thy eternal summer shall not fade.” He found a pair of clean trousers and pulled them on.

“But am I beautiful, Spike?”

“As beautiful and precious as the rarest jewel.”

She shot across the room, stopping inches in front of him. “Am I not the most beautiful demon in the land?”

“In any land, my love.”

She thrust the mirror between then. “My mirror says I am not.”

“Then it’s lying.”

Her eyes narrowed. “My mirror says that I am fair, but another is fairer.”

“Who, then?” he asked wearily. “Tell me who your rival is and I’ll tear off her face.”

“You!” Drusilla screamed. “My mirror says that you are the most beautiful demon.”

He didn’t like the look on her face—it was devoid of love and reason. He backed away, grabbing a shirt as he did. “You must have misunderstood it, pet.”

“It spoke to me clearly, it did. You are fairer and you love another.” Her eyes narrowed to slits and she lifted her chin. “I think I shall make myself a new prince. An ugly one who will love me best.”

At one time, her words would have broken his undead heart. But she had been unfaithful before, and in any case, it was now Xander who was the center of Spike’s world. Xander whom he’d only met in those strange undreams.

“If that’s what you want,” Spike said. He sidled past her and grabbed his coat off the back of a chair in the front room.

She came up behind him as he was slipping on his shoes. She slammed her hands into his back, sending him sprawling onto the floor. As quickly as he could roll over, she was on top of him, fangs glistening as she snarled. “You were meant to be mine!”

“Dru—”

She slashed four furrows in his cheek with her sharp nails. “I was to be the beautiful princess and you were my dark knight. That is how the story went. It’s not fair to change the ending!”

“Dru, I can’t … I don’t … something’s wrong, love—”

She clawed his other cheek. “Don’t call me that!” She bent over, striking at his neck with her fangs. He shoved hard at her and was able to scramble free, but she grabbed him before he could escape out the door. “I shall have your untrue heart for supper!”

He hit her, hard. Hard enough that she loosened her grip on him, and then he wrapped his hands around her neck and bashed her head into the doorframe. The wood cracked and split, and Dru collapsed to the floor, unconscious. “Not tonight, pet. Sorry.”

He kept to the shadows until it was dark enough to be safe. Then he nicked a car and drove it out of the city, down a dark and bumpy road past green fields and finally into a woods. Of course. Always a fucking woods. If the shopkeeper’s directions were accurate, this wizardy bloke lived down a dirt track that was too much for the Fiat to manage. Spike abandoned the car by the wayside and walked into the trees.

There were no brambles here. That was good. But owls called to each other overhead and Spike felt as if he were being watched.

The pathway narrowed and turned a bend, and then he was in a clearing. A small cottage stood in the center, windows cheerily lit, smoke puffing from the chimney. “Oi!” Spike shouted, but nobody answered. He warily moved closer and peered in through one of the windows. The cottage was cozy inside, crammed with comfortable, worn furniture and piles of books and various little knickknacks. There was no sign of any people, however, and of course Spike couldn’t enter, so he sat on a tree stump near the door and waited.

He waited a long time—over two hours—and he was in a foul mood when he heard voices. A group of seven people entered the clearing, but then stopped abruptly when they caught sight of him.

“Quien es?” demanded one of them, a tall, middle-aged man.

“Name’s Spike. And— Buffy?”

The petite blonde stepped forward, her hands on her hips. “How did you know my name?”

“I … There was the prince and … Bloody hell! Fairy godmother! Radislav?”

The others looked at one another in confusion, until the man walked up to Spike. “Who are you and what do you want?”

Spike shook his head to clear it. “Told you—’m Spike. Looking for someone called Giles.”

“Then you’ve found him.”

“Good. I need advice on … something mystical.”

Giles looked at him skeptically, and then one of the others came over to stare as well. “Your skin is very white,” she said. She touched his hand for a moment and yanked her hand away. “And you’re cold. Like snow.”

He took a deep breath. “I’m a vampire.”

Before he knew it, he was flat on his back, trying to breathe through a broken nose. Buffy sat astride him, digging a stake into his chest. That’s when he realized what he would have before, if he hadn’t been confused by enchantments: she was a Slayer. He tried to keep his voice calm and reasonable. “Look, I didn’t come to make trouble, did I? Wouldn’t have announced myself like that if I had.”

“You didn’t come to bake cookies either, I bet,” Buffy snapped.

“Please! I only want … I want to get home. Back to my boy. That’s all.”

Buffy looked as if she meant to dust him anyway, but then one of the others knelt beside them. “B-Buffy? I-I think he’s telling the truth. Maybe we c-could at least hear him out?”

Which is how Spike ended up tied tightly to a wooden chair in the middle of the cottage’s front room, seven humans circled about him. They introduced themselves: aside from Giles and Buffy, there was the girl who’d been willing to listen to him, who was called Tara. The young one was Dawn, and the fairy godmother was Willow. The big bloke went by Riley instead of Radislav. And the one who’d commented on the paleness of his skin, that was Anyanka. He startled when he heard her name. “The demon who cursed Xander!”

She frowned. “I’m retired now. And I have never cursed Xander, not even when he broke up with me.”

“Xander! You know Xander! Where is he?” He strained at his ropes, as if he might leap up and find his boy in the next room.

Buffy folded her arms over her chest. “What do you know about Xander?”

Explanations followed. At first they accused him of lying, but then Tara pointed out that he had no cause to do so, and that he seemed genuinely distressed over the situation. She even smiled at him. He liked that girl. Then Giles polished his eyeglasses and asked questions, and the others paced restlessly and ate, until finally the hour grew very late and Spike was knackered.

“Please,” he finally begged. “Xander. Where is he?”

Anyanka was the one to answer. “Africa. Maybe.”

“Africa?”

“Yes. He used to patrol with us—we hunt for evil demons—but then he had some sort of mental crisis and he broke up with me and left. He’s sent us some postcards.” She walked over to a table and held up a rectangle of cardboard with a photo of pyramids.

Spike slumped in his bonds. “I need … I need to see him.”

Buffy made a face. “Xander and a vampire. Ew.”

“I bloody love him!” Spike roared.

Giles had been staring thoughtfully at the ceiling. “We won’t solve this problem tonight. I propose that we secure the vam—Spike somewhere a bit more … solid. We can research this tomorrow.”

There was some general grumbling, and Spike protested that he didn’t bloody need to be secured anywhere, but in the end he was chained up in Giles’ bathtub. At least Tara brought him a pillow and a blanket. He made himself as comfortable as he could and tried to sleep.

 

***

 

“You are William the Bloody,” Giles said.

Spike stretched his cramped neck and sighed. “Yeah.”

“And you expect us to believe that William the Bloody has come in peace, and that he has a … relationship with Xander.”

“ ’T’s the truth.”

“That seems highly unlikely.” Now it was Giles’ turn to sigh. “But according to the Watchers’ Dairies, you’ve rarely been one for subtle schemes, and Tara says we ought to believe you.”

Spike tried to appear appreciative; he didn’t have much practice at it. “Ta.”

Giles unfastened the chains and stepped back as Spike stepped out of the bathtub and stretched. Spike could see Giles’ hand hovering near his pocket, where, no doubt, a stake was tucked away.

“Follow me,” Giles ordered. “I want to ask you some questions. But I’ll warn you, if you try anything, erm, violent …”

“Dust. Yeah, got it.”

Spike sat in one of Giles’ comfortable chairs and ignored his empty belly. Giles sat opposite him, balancing a notepad on his knee. “If your description last night was accurate, I believe you’re under some sort of enchantment,” Giles said.

“Hardly takes expertise in magics to suss that out. But what sort of enchantment and how do I break it?”

“I don’t know yet. Now, you’ve had several of these … these dreams, correct?”

“They’re not really dreams, but yeah.”

“And what were their common elements?”

“Xander,” Spike replied immediately.

Giles nodded and scribbled something on his paper. “Yes, Xander. Has he always been the same?”

“Sometimes he’s been a prince and sometimes not. But he always loves me. He’s always missing his eye—”

“He lost it in a battle some years ago.”

“In the not-dreams as well. And, erm, sometimes he’s a werewolf.”

Giles’ eyebrows flew up. “Xander—our Xander—was bitten by a werewolf a few years ago. We were able to cure him of the infection, however.”

“My Xander doesn’t want to be cured,” Spike replied, unsure how he could be so certain of this.

Giles made a few more notes, then looked at him. “Anything else?”

“My boy and I shag.”

“Apart from the sex, Spike.”

Spike shrugged. “They’re all children’s stories, aren’t they? Princes and fairies and all that rot.”

“A literary spell, then?”

“Yes!” Spike exclaimed as a realization hit him. “Books! They’ve been everywhere—in William’s grandmother’s house, in that room in the palace—under Xander’s back, actually.”

“Fascinating!” Giles was writing furiously. “Anything else?”

Spike thought for a few moments. “ ’M not .. not myself, am I?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean I’m a bloody vampire! You said it yourself—William the Bloody. I’ve earned that nickname.”

Giles scowled at him. “I know. I was reading up on you this morning.”

“Then you know I should be rampaging through the city with Dru at my side, fucking and fighting and bathing in blood.”

“Thank you for the lovely imagery.”

“I should be feasting on you and your sorry lot. I offed a Slayer before, you know. Can still taste her, like fireworks on my tongue.”

Giles rolled his eyes. “You do realize you’re not making a very strong case for assistance, don’t you?”

Spike leapt to his feet and began to pace. “But I’m not killing anyone, am I? And the bloody strange thing is that I don’t sodding want to. I’m hungry right now and I should be draining you dry, but all I can do is tell myself That would be wrong and Xander would be devastated. Where’s the sense in that? Where’s the sense in any of this?” With a roar of frustration, he collapsed back into his chair and buried his head in his hands.

He heard Giles stand up, and out of the corner of his eye he could see Giles walk over to a particularly overstuffed bookshelf and begin to peruse the books’ spines. “I shall see if I can find any records of similar enchantments. In the meantime, please refrain from massacres; Tara and Willow promised they would visit the butcher’s before they come here tonight.”

“Animal blood,” Spike said with disgust.

“Animal blood will suffice.” Giles tugged a large book off the shelf, blew away the dust, and carried it over to a table. He had to move piles of papers and pamphlets and scrolls out of the way before he could set the book down. “I’ve another concern as well. You said Drusilla was … quite put out with you last night.”

“Threatened to eat my heart,” said Spike morosely.

“Will she come searching for you here?”

Spike frowned. Honestly, he had barely thought of Dru since he’d escaped her. “Dunno. She’s a bit unpredictable, my Dru. Sometimes she gets a notion and it’s fleeting as the wind. Other times she clamps her jaws onto an idea like a crocodile.”

“And could she find you here, if she had a mind to?”

“Perhaps. Didn’t tell her where I was going, but she sees things, sometimes. She’s never had trouble finding me before.”

“Then I suggest you stay inside, where she cannot enter without an invitation.”

Spike nodded unhappily. Stuck in a cottage with this righteous berk and his band of do-gooders. Angelus himself could hardly have invented a worse form of torture.

 

***

 

Spike was bored. Nearly two weeks had passed, and although Giles claimed to have found a few promising leads in his research, he was really not any closer to solving Spike’s mystery. Cold pigs’ blood was a poor substitute for fresh human. And his housemates got on his nerves, all except sweet Tara and young Dawn—the girl enjoyed listening to some of the gorier tales from Spike’s past, even when the others objected.

Out of desperation, Spike did housework. He tidied and swept. He cooked. He rearranged Giles’ books, first by subject and then again by author. He read through the Diary entries on himself and made corrections. He almost went out of his mind.

Worse than the confinement and boredom, worse than Buffy’s caustic comments or Riley’s evil looks, worse than anything was his separation from Xander. More than once he was ready to take off for the Dark Continent himself, and then Tara or Dawn would remind him that Xander could be anywhere, that the climate and conditions there weren’t very appropriate for a white-skinned vampire, and that he could wake up anytime to find himself in another fairy tale, no closer to getting back home. Wherever home was.

Giles and his lot went out monster-hunting most nights. Spike was willing to join them, even to lend a helping fang. But Buffy didn’t trust him, and he wasn’t certain he wouldn’t end up a victim of friendly fire, so he stayed in the cottage night after night and rather mindlessly puttered about. Finally, one afternoon as Spike lay sleeping in Giles’ cupboard—they had stopped chaining him in the bathtub, at least—Giles came running into the bedroom to wake him up. “I think I’ve found something!” he exclaimed.

Spike uncurled himself and rubbed his eyes and tried to kick-start his brain. “Yeah? What?” He shuffled out of the bedroom and to the kitchen, pulling a jar of pig's blood from the fridge. He couldn’t help grimacing as he swallowed it down.

Giles had followed at his heels. “I was reading through Gailen’s Chronicles, the unabridged edition of course, and— I do wish you would rinse your glass when you are finished.”

“Get on with it.”

“Yes. The Chronicles. According to Gailen, several decades ago there was a failed author, an Englishman named Farthing.”

“Stupid bloody name.”

“Yes, Spike. This Farthing was quite well-to-do, but couldn’t make a penny from his writing. So he contracted with a wizard, a rather disreputable sort who was down on his luck, and the wizard cast an enchantment over Farthing’s books. It was a sort of a glamour, you see, and it was meant to draw the reader into the tale, to trap him so that he would be somewhat compelled to continue reading. Gailen also claims that all Farthing’s volumes were destroyed in the Purge of ’21, but perhaps one or two managed to escape. Or perhaps another author learned the same trick.”

“So this Farthing tosser pulled me into a book?”

“I don’t know. By all accounts, his spell was mild. It wouldn’t physically place the reader in the story, but only, well, capture his interest.”

Spike waved a hand, indicating his body as a whole. “This is more than my interest, mate.”

“I know. Perhaps you were caught by a similar enchantment, but stronger. Or perhaps something intensified your reaction.”

“Mushroom,” Spike muttered.

“Sorry?”

Spike shook his head. “Dunno. I … almost had something, I think. Right then. How do we break the spell?”

“I don’t know. Normally, the enchantment would end when the reader finished the story. But you seemed to have got past the happily ever after bit—”

“You mean the bit where Xan and I shag.”

“—and then you simply enter a new tale. I shall have to continue my research.”

Spike sighed. And then he frowned as a thought struck him. “If you’re correct, Rupert, then aren’t you simply a fictional character?”

Giles blinked, then drew himself to his full height and glared. “I assure you, Spike. I am as real as you are.”

Deciding that the philosophical and metaphysical implications of the situation would only give him a headache, Spike wandered off to take a bath.

 

***

 

When the knock sounded at the door, Spike knew who it had to be. Giles and his lot were out hunting demons, and nobody else ever came to the cottage—certainly not in the wee hours of the night. After considering his options for a few moments, Spike decided he wasn’t a sodding coward and answered the door.

“My prince!” Drusilla exclaimed. She tried to throw her arms around him but he stepped back and she bounced against the invisible barrier at the threshold. “Oh, naughty boy! Turning away from your beloved sire.”

“You tried to dust me, Dru.”

“Tsk. Such a fuss about nothing.” She smiled coquettishly at him. “Come out and play, my William. There’s a Slayer about. Do you remember the last one? Let’s find her, let’s.”

Spike wanted to do no such thing. But if he simply refused and slammed the door in Dru’s face, she was likely to wait, and then she’d be there when Buffy and the others arrived. Spike didn’t want Dru dusted and, oddly enough, didn’t want any of these odd humans killed either.

“Let’s go back to the city, Dru. I’ll find you something nice to eat there. You haven’t had a baby in ages, have you? And perhaps we can get you a new dress, one that swirls when you spin.” Or, Spike thought to himself, I can find you a big, stupid demon to run off with, and you can forget about me. Something with horns—his Dru had a kink for those.

Drusilla chewed thoughtfully on a fingernail and then smiled. “And a doll, Spike? Will you get me a doll? Miss Edith is ever so lonely.”

“I’ll get you a houseful of dolls.”

She clapped her hands and then held them out to him. Spike stepped outside and took her arm. He didn’t know if his stolen Fiat was still in the area, but if they made their way to the main road perhaps he could nick a new car. So he set off in that direction, Dru skipping merrily at his side.

But as they left the clearing and entered the woods, she stopped, dragging him to a halt. She tilted her head and looked at him as if she were a particularly intelligent bird of prey. And then she smiled again—wickedly—and slammed a long wooden shaft into his chest.

“Bad dog!” she said as he fell. “Telling me stories. Pretending you still love me.”

“What have you done?” he rasped. He was sprawled awkwardly on his back, barely able to move even his lips.

She knelt beside him and, with a quick snap of her wrist, broke off the end of the small spear. He could still feel it piercing his body, but his skin closed over the wound so that nobody would know it was there. “Sleep tight, my prince. See if your nasty human boy wants you like this. Maybe he’ll jiggle you and wiggle you, and my magic splinter will travel right to your heart.” She laughed delightedly, stood, and walked away.

Spike couldn’t move at all, not even to call out to her. He didn’t know what he’d say anyway. Beg for mercy from a demon? Curse her with his last breaths? And the darkness of the woods at night became even blacker, as if someone were dropping a blanket over the world, and the small forest sounds began to fade, and Spike slipped away.

 

***

 

“Sweetheart? Baby? Oh God, please wake up, Spike. Wake up.”

Spike told his eyelids to open but they wouldn’t obey. He could taste, though—his boy’s familiar flavor was on his lips. And he could feel calloused hands stroking his arms, smoothing over his chest and belly. It was lovely. If only he could move his mouth to say so.

But he couldn’t move; he could only lie there helplessly, smelling the salt of tears, as Xander petted and crooned to him. “I’m sorry, Spike. I didn’t know. Christ, how could I? But we’re … I’m … I don’t understand. We can fix this, though, right? But you gotta wake up.”

Spike couldn’t even manage a sigh as Xander settled his body alongside him. Xander was naked, his skin almost hot, and Spike expected he must be lovely and brown from the African sun. His cheeks were rough with stubble where they brushed against Spike’s. “I was so far away,” he whispered in Spike’s ear. “Sometimes the land and the sky just stretch on forever there, and it’s so bright and hot you can’t even think. And the smells and the tastes and the sounds. They have colors there that only exist in Africa, I think.” He kissed Spike’s cheek tenderly, then did it again.

“I was all by myself there, Spike, but I couldn’t find … couldn’t find me. I was so goddamn lonely.”

Yes, Spike thought, lonely. He knew that feeling. Incomplete, unfinished, forlorn.

Xander kissed him again, soft lips against Spike’s neck, and a hand heavy atop Spike’s chest. “And I had these weird fucking dreams. I thought it was a fever—I was kinda sick for a while. You were in them, and I knew you, even though we’d never met. I knew you. As soon as I could travel again, I knew I had to come back here. And here you are, only I can’t wake you up.” Xander made a sound that was like a sob.

Spike decided he would rather be paralyzed beside his boy than fully active without him. If only he had some way to tell Xander that, to let his boy know that Spike could hear and feel him.

Xander moved a bit, and for a moment Spike was afraid he’d leave. But instead, Xander simply traced his lips over Spike’s other cheek. He kissed the tip of Spike’s nose, the point of his chin, his Adam’s apple and the tiny scars from a bite in a London alley long ago. He kissed both of Spike’s shoulders and the length of both collarbones.

Spike cursed silently because although he desired Xander with every cell in his body, his cock remained soft and his lungs silent.

“You taste good, baby,” Xander said, flicking his tongue delicately at the hollow in Spike’s throat. “You feel good. Smooth. Cool. There’s something about your hair, though. Not sure why—I keep picturing it blond, like Marilyn Monroe.” He chuckled. “My pin-up vamp.”

Xander shifted again, now lapping and nibbling at Spike’s right nipple, teasing the nub of flesh a bit with the edges of his teeth. His hand was rubbing at Spike’s hip, a long, steady stroke that made Spike feel like a large cat. Then Xander leaned over him to lavish attention on the other nipple, and his hand moved to Spike’s groin. He cradled Spike’s balls gently, weighing them in his big palm, then tickled his fingertips through the hairs at the base of Spike’s cock. Spike wanted to arch into the caresses.

“You’re so perfect,” Xander said against his chest. “So goddamn perfect except you won’t wake up. Please wake up, Spike.” And he kissed once more, this time just over Spike’s heart.

Agony shot through Spike’s body and he screamed. But midway through the scream and even through the pain he realized that he was making noise, he was breathing, and that meant he could bloody well move. He pried his eyes open in time to see Xander scrambling away from him, mouth gaping with shock. Spike tried to sit up and only managed to fall off the bed, but at least he could grasp the wooden shard that had erupted from his chest, and he could yank it out of his body and fling it far away. And when Xander collapsed to his knees beside him, Spike could reach over and grab him in his arms and vow never, ever to let him go.


	6. Chapter 6

Six

 

“Fucking hell!” With a scream of rage, Spike threw himself against the stone wall. It didn’t do any good. The wall remained undamaged and indifferent, and the only casualty was Spike’s shoulder. Another frantic circuit of the round room told him only what he already knew: smooth stone walls, stone ceiling perhaps 20 feet overhead. No door, no furniture, nothing at all except his naked self. And a single glassless window that revealed his location high in a tower, overlooking a deep forest. The base of the tower was ringed with thorn bushes. The window was warded somehow, like the traditional protection from vampires, only reversed—humans could enter but Spike couldn’t leave.

Humans did enter, every several days. Nasty soldier types with stun guns and chains and sharp, pointy objects. And the scientists came with them, measuring and prodding and driving him mad with their clinical eyes. They didn’t speak to him, apart from barking orders and peppering him with questions meant to test Christ knew what. If Spike put up a fight, if he failed to cooperate, they’d activate the chip in his skull until he begged for mercy. And when they were finished with him, they’d leave a few packets of semi-congealed animal blood and they’d climb back out the window.

At least, that’s what one part of his brain told him. That bit also informed him that he’d been in the tower for years and years, that he would nearly freeze in the winter, that he had no way to occupy his time apart from staring outside. He couldn’t even burn himself; the wards kept the sun’s rays out of his reach.

But although his memories of pain and maltreatment and loneliness were sharp and clear, he knew they were false. Xander was real, Xander and the enchantment. And somehow Spike had to find a way to track down Xander and the book so they could return to where they belonged. But there were no books in the tower and Xander could be anywhere—perhaps he was in an enchanted sleep; those seemed very popular—and Spike was trapped.

He bashed into the walls again until he felt a bone snap, and then he simply slumped on the floor, which was also stone and bloody uncomfortable.

An eternity later, he heard the soldiers and scientists climbing the ladder on the outside of the tower. They swore at one another and complained about the effort it took. He never had understood why they hadn’t stuffed him somewhere more convenient for them to access; when he’d asked them that, long ago, they’d answered only with impatient impositions of pain.

They tumbled in through his window—three bulky men in camouflage and a man and a woman in white coats. The woman seemed to be in charge, and Spike couldn’t help but cower when he saw her. She was a cruel bitch. She claimed her treatment of Spike was all in the name of research, but he was pretty certain she got off on at least some of it.

“Restrain it,” she ordered.

The soldiers dutifully tromped over and cuffed Spike’s wrists behind his back. They tethered his ankles with a short hobble and then pushed him to the floor. The usual followed: they pricked him with needles to draw samples of various fluids, they stuck electrodes on his scalp and watched lines squiggle on a small computer. They rammed a thermometer up his arse, which was bloody pointless—he was always room temperature. And then, most humiliating, they bent him over and stimulated his prostate with a vibrating rod until he climaxed; they collected his spend in a little glass vial.

Then came the questioning bit. “What is your name? Who is the President? What year were you turned? What’s twenty times three?” And on and on. When they’d first captured him he had deliberately given wrong answers, babbling nonsense or snatches of poetry or responding in various demon tongues. But they had punished him for it, and eventually he had decided that the small rebellion wasn’t worth the agony that followed.

This day, though, when the scientists paused to take some notes, Spike smiled grimly. “You’re not real,” he said.

The woman snapped her eyes to him. “What did it say?”

“I said, you’re not real, none of you are. You’re … stock characters. The Evil Scientist. The Sadistic Soldier. Nothing original about you, even.”

She stepped closer to him and looked down at him as if he were an exotic insect. “What makes you think that?”

“ ’T’s true, innit? You’re nothing. Only I’m real. And Xander, he’s real as well.”

“How do you know you’re real?”

He barked out a laugh. “Cogito ergo sum, twat.”

The pejorative earned him a small correction from the chip. It would have been a larger zap, but the woman held up her hand to the soldier with the controller. “And who is this … Xander, was it?”

“He’s a bloody hero, he is. A wolf and a prince and my one true love. You’re just a sodding scribble, the lot of you. Bad writing by a bad author.”

She signaled to the soldier, and Spike shrieked and tried to curl in on himself as the pain washed through his skull. It took several moments before he could hear the humans’ conversation again. “—mental state has deteriorated more than I thought,” the woman was saying to her minion. “Maybe we can terminate this experiment soon.”

“Will we terminate the subject?” the other scientist asked.

She didn’t even glance at him. “No, I think not. There are other uses for it. Come on, let’s get back to the lab.”

Spike didn’t move as the soldiers unchained him, and it was hours later before he had the strength to drink the horrible blood they’d left him. He refused to consider the possibility that he truly had gone mad, and that the bits about Xander and the enchantment were nothing but a wild delusion.

 

***

 

“Oh, Christ! Spike!”

Spike woke with a start and scrambled to his feet. There was a face at his window. A familiar, beloved face, with stubbled cheeks and, surprisingly, two warm eyes.

Spike ran to the window, but of course he couldn't go out, and it appeared that Xander couldn’t come in. “You found me,” Spike said hoarsely.

“Of course. I’ve been looking for a while. I’m sorry, Spike. I had no idea where you were, and—”

“Don’t. You came, and that’s what matters, innit?”

Xander nodded. “I heard rumors that these black helicopter types were doing stuff to demons and that one was locked in a tower. I hoped it was you.”

“My hero,” Spike said with a small smile. “Have you the book?”

“No. I was kinda hoping you had it.”

Spike indicated his empty cell. “Not much of a library here, pet.”

“They couldn’t even give you some goddamn clothes! I’m gonna make them pay, Spike, I’m gonna rip them to shreds.”

“They’re not real, remember?”

“Maybe not, but you’re still miserable. How long has it been?”

“Dunno.”

Xander sighed and then grinned slightly. “I knew you were supposed to have blond hair. Only … I didn’t picture it so long.”

Spike ran fingers through his tangled curls. If he were able to brush them out, they would likely reach halfway down his back.

“Do you know how I can get in there?” asked Xander. “Or pull you out?”

“No. The others … they just climb on in.”

“Fuck. I really hate magic, Spike.”

“Can’t say I disagree.”

They put their palms up so that only the invisible barrier separated them. The pain of not quite touching was worse than anything the soldiers had done to him.

Finally, Xander nodded. “Okay. You stay here. Um, obviously. I’m gonna go find my friend Willow and see if she can give me a hand. It’s gonna take a few days, though, okay?”

“Hurry,” Spike said. “And mind the thorns below.”

Xander blew him a kiss and climbed back down the ladder.

Spike waited anxiously, pacing the length of his prison until he was too exhausted to move. Then he curled up on the hard floor and had strange, disjointed dreams about robots and unicorns and lawyers. The following day brought more waiting. More staring out his window at the uneven carpet of green. More walking back and forth and back and forth until he nearly expected the stone beneath his feet to wear away.

And then, just after sunset, he heard voices.

Not Xander. Spike swore and backed as far from the window as he could, expecting another round of testing. But this time only soldiers—six in all—climbed in through the opening; no scientists. That was alarming, and Spike decided to put up as much of a fight as he could, chip or not.

He never got a chance. One of the soldiers shot him with a dart that lodged in Spike’s shoulder, and although Spike pulled the dart out at once, he was too late. He felt suddenly weak and groggy, and he collapsed to the floor.

Spike was only dimly aware of the rough hands that grabbed him and twisted him about. He couldn’t move a muscle in protest as he was hogtied. And when he was finally lowered out the window on a rope—finally escaping that room after years and years—he was in no condition to enjoy his relative freedom. He swung dizzyingly as they eased him down the length of the tower. Sometimes he bashed into the wall and then bounced off, but the soldiers didn’t seem to care. They didn’t mind either, that the thorn bushes tore at his unprotected skin, leaving long, bloody scratches across his face and body. Two of the men heaved him onto their shoulders and carried him for a short distance, and then he was tossed into the back of a lorry and chained in place.

The lorry bounced and jostled for what felt like ages, but he was too drugged to accurately judge the passage of time. He wanted to mourn his lost opportunity to reunite with Xander, but the drugs gave a strange sort of distance to everything, as if all this weren’t really happening to him. It was as if he were reading about someone in a book, actually, and that thought almost made him laugh. Or cry. He was too muddled to tell.

By the time the vehicle came to a halt, he was nearly clear-headed again. But the chains that bound him were strong and he couldn’t break them. He remained helpless as the soldiers carried him out of the lorry, across a car park, and into a hulking, windowless building. They took him down a short hallway, unchained him, and threw him into a dark cell. Then they went away again.

He had loads of time to think. To wonder what that bitch had planned for him now. To speculate about what would happen if he and Xander never did find one another again. Would Spike eventually find his way into another story anyway, or would he simply remain in this grim reality? He tried to remember who he really was, what his true life was like, but nothing came to him except tantalizing bits. Xander repairing something in what appeared to be a hotel lobby. A shameful act involving Buffy, and then some horrible trials afterwards. Angelus an ally instead of a tormenter. But Spike couldn’t make sense of them, and wasn’t even certain that they were real memories instead of bits of other tales.

He slept and woke. Packets of blood were shoved into the cell through a small slot. He slept and woke again, and again. Only the growing pile of empty blood packets marked the passage of time, but he wasn’t sure how often he was fed, or whether it was on a regular schedule.

He waited for his mind to snap completely.

And then there were sounds. Distant, muted noises of shouting and running and, he thought, gunshots as well. Spike stood near the door, poised in readiness, his fangs extended.

But still he startled when the door burst open.

“Buffy!” Spike exclaimed.

The blonde had a stake in one hand and a sword in the other. “What’s your name?” she asked suspiciously.

“Spike. I’m Spike. Christ, is Xander—”

“Xan! I found him!”

His ears were still ringing from her deafening shout when Xander appeared. His hair was mussed and his face was scarred. He was wearing the eye patch. He was the most beautiful thing Spike had ever seen.

“Spike!” Xander cried, and gathered him in his arms. Spike squeezed him so tightly that Xander made a small choking noise and the chip fired briefly.

“Xander, what’s—”

“Can’t explain now, baby. Let’s get the hell out of here first.”

Spike nodded. Buffy led and Xander held his hand as they ran through the corridor. There were still screams and sounds of fighting, and Buffy paused to throw herself at a pair of soldiers, but Xander and Spike kept running until they were outside, where an oversize SUV was parked with its engine running. Xander dragged Spike into the vehicle. “Here,” Xander grinned, and wrapped a blanket about Spike before holding him tight again. Then several other people came running and crowding into the truck, and Spike didn’t even have the chance to see who they were before they sped away.

“That went well,” said a slight young man with spiky red hair.

“We got Spike and none of us died,” Xander retorted. “That’s all that matters.”

A brunette who smelled like a Slayer turned around and glared at Xander. “Speak for yourself, loverboy. I got a wicked gash in my side. I hate it when I scar.”

But Xander was obliviously nuzzling at Spike’s neck, and Spike was so stunned at the sudden turn of events that he couldn’t say a word, nor could he follow the conversations of the humans around him.

“You okay?” Xander whispered to him after a while.

“Yeah. Just … it’s a bit much all at once, innit?”

“Sorry, Spike. It took us a while to track you down, and then we had to figure out how the hell to break into that place, and—”

“Don’t apologize, love.” Spike reached up to stroke his boy’s face. “What happened?”

“I went back to the tower to get you, but you weren’t there. And I kind of freaked out and wasn’t very careful when I climbed down.”

“The bloody thorns.”

“Yeah. It’s pretty ugly, huh?”

“No, pet. You’re gorgeous.” Spike kissed him lightly to emphasize his point. A few of the other people in the car made shocked noises, but the brunette laughed and leered at them.

It was a very long drive, and Spike eventually fell asleep, sprawled against Xander. When they finally arrived at a small, neat bungalow the sun had risen; Spike had to drape the blanket over his head and run to avoid combustion. Xander invited Spike inside the house and shooed all the others away. “Later,” he promised them. “Go get patched up and sleep or whatever. I think Spike needs some quiet right now.”

And he was right, because all this rapid change after such eternal monotony was overwhelming and Spike’s head was spinning. Spike was very grateful when Xander took him into a tiny bedroom that was almost entirely filled with a big bed, and then tucked Spike in before stripping and climbing in beside him.

Xander yawned. “I haven’t found the book yet. We’ve been looking, but, well, big world, small book.”

“But you found me, pet. Twice.”

“Yeah. And if we don’t get out of here this time—”

“We’ll keep on trying. I trust you—you always rescue me.”

Xander turned off the light and snuggled against him. “Except when you rescue me. Which of us is the brave knight and which is the damsel in distress, do you think?”

“No damsels here, love,” Spike chuckled, and stroked Xander’s soft cock.


	7. Chapter 7

Seven

 

“Bloody, buggering hell!” Spike squeaked. “It’s not bloody fair!” He stomped his tiny foot hard enough to wobble the apple that was next to him. But the apple didn’t even roll, and in a fit of pique he slammed his arms into it, pushing it off the table.

“Tsk,” said Joyce. She picked him up with two fingers and set him in her palm, then held him up at face height. “You’re making a mess. That’s enough with the tantrum, young man.”

“I’m neither young nor a man and you’re not my mum!”

“That’s enough! Early bedtime for you.” She carried him over to a chest of drawers and put him down on top of it. His matchbox bed was there, all made up neatly with a tuft of wool for a pillow and a folded handkerchief as bedding. It was quite comfortable really, cozy and snug. But of course it wasn’t where he wanted to be, and he didn’t much fancy being two inches tall either.

Joyce was waiting impatiently. “Come on, Spike. Time to get ready for bed.” When he looked at her quizzically, she huffed a sigh. “Clothes off. Now.”

He looked down at his ridiculous kit: red silk trousers and a yellow tunic. He wouldn’t mind being rid of it at all, except he had nothing to change into. And although his false memories included years of nudity in front of Joyce, he was suddenly embarrassed at the thought of it. “Don’t want to,” he protested.

“Right now. One … two …”

With a sigh of his own, Spike tugged the tunic over his head and let it fall near his feet. Joyce picked it up and folded it carefully while he slipped his trousers off. Then she folded those as well and tucked the kit into a drawer. Spike hurriedly got into bed and pulled the makeshift blanket over himself.

She looked at him sternly. “If you want me to treat you like a grownup you have to start acting like one.”

“But I’m a miniature vampire!”

“Who shouldn’t be having tantrums. Now, eat your dinner and go to sleep.” She pulled a pin from her shirtsleeve and pricked the pad of one of her thumbs, which she held in front of him. He slurped at the little wound until his belly felt round and tight, but he couldn’t have had more than a few drops.

“Good night,” she said. Then she turned and exited the room, switching the light off before she left.

Spike sulked for a time. Then he yanked off the blanket and took a good look at himself, which didn’t improve his mood any. Yeah, the tackle was still impressive enough in proportion to the rest of him, but that wasn’t saying much. And the average shrew could likely bite more impressively than he could with his tiny fangs. How was he meant to find Xander like this, and even if he did, would his boy take him seriously? Why would Xander want a lover who could easily fit in his pocket?

But grumbling wasn’t going to help, he admitted to himself. He listened closely for any sounds of movement in the house, but Joyce must have gone to sleep herself, because there was only silence. So he crept back out of bed and then cursed silently when he realized he had nothing to wear. He couldn’t possibly open the drawer by himself. Lovely—he was going to have to hunt for Xander while minuscule and naked.

Now he had to suss out how to get off the chest of drawers. He was perhaps four feet up, a drop that was likely to be harmful to his small body. But after a few moments of experimentation, he discovered that if he held on very tight, he could sort of shimmy down the decoratively carved corner piece of the furniture. He landed on the smooth wooden floor without making a sound, then crept across the room. Naturally, reaching the doorknob, let alone turning it, was out of the question. But he flattened himself to the ground and was just barely able to squeeze through the little gap beneath the door.

He padded down a short hallway hung with photos of him posed in various humiliating outfits: a miniature sailor suit, a tiny cowboy kit, a replica of a British schoolboy uniform, a glittery nappy with matching glittery wings. The worst part of it was that he remembered Joyce dressing him up like that, he remembered posing, and he even remembered not minding very much, because afterward Joyce would give him a thimble-sized cup full of hot chocolate with a bit of marshmallow added in, and she’d make a fuss over how handsome he was, and she’d let him watch hours of telly without her complaining that it was rotting his brain. She was never cruel to him; she’d simply viewed him as an acceptable midlife substitute for her daughters who’d left the nest. And he’d put up with the babying and indignities because he’d received plenty of fresh blood in return, not to mention safety and comfort.

Now though, he knew all that was false. What was real was Xander, and Spike needed to find him.

The front door was closed and locked and there was no gap underneath it. For a moment, Spike despaired. But then he caught sight of the mail slot. If he could only reach that, he might be able to clamber out.

He had to use all his vampiric strength to quietly slide a metal footstool from the kitchen through the dining room and to the front door. The slippery metal made it difficult to climb the stool but Spike was able to leap onto the first step, and from there onto the second, and that put the mail slot just within reach. He pulled himself up with his hands, exhaled all his breath to make himself as skinny as possible, and just barely managed to squeeze through. He landed on the pavement below with a bone-jarring thud, and then he began to walk.

It was ridiculous—a vampire shouldn’t be afraid of a little nighttime stroll. But he was so very small and vulnerable, and Joyce had only rarely permitted him outside, and even that with him safely in her hands. So he didn’t so much walk as scuttle, hurrying from clump of weeds to clump of weeds, until he was several blocks away.

He hadn’t really thought this bit through—naked and tiny, how was he going to find Xander, who could be anywhere? He hid underneath a dustbin and considered his predicament. In the previous tales, Xander had tended to keep a pretty high profile and to hang about with Buffy and the others. Perhaps that meant that the local demons would have some idea where he was. But Spike couldn’t just march up and ask the demons, not like this. Most of them could have him as a nosh without even needing to chew.

He dimly remembered that there was a demon bar in town. He’d visited there before he’d been made small. He sighed. How was he to know that Harmony, the sodding spiteful cow, had confided in her vengeance demon pal that she wished her ex was Tom Thumb? Right then. At least the bar was a place to begin.

Had he been normal-sized, he could have covered the two miles in a quarter hour or less. Or just nicked a car, if he was feeling lazy. But he certainly couldn’t drive, and his short legs took him the better part of the night to get there. Perhaps that was just as well because by the time he arrived, the bar was closed and empty. Spike was able to easily slip inside through a broken cellar window. At which point he laboriously climbed the stairs to the ground floor and looked for a place to hide.

The bar wasn’t especially big, and it reeked of stale beer and spilled whiskey and the scents of several dozen species, some of whom weren’t especially keen on personal hygiene. The furniture was worn and mismatched, much of it badly patched after having been damaged in bar fights, and the floor was sticky with fluids that made even a vampire slightly nauseous. Spike went behind the long wooden bar and found a hollow space between the front face panel and the barkeep's shelving. The space smelled of mice and cockroaches, but he crawled in and discovered that he fit quite comfortably; thin gaps between the planks of wood would allow him to see and hear what was going on when the room was occupied. Perfect.

Now he needed to see to his personal comfort. He dragged a thick stack of paper napkins into his hiding spot; they would make a serviceable bed. But he didn’t much fancy remaining naked. He found some relatively clean towels, but they were too big for him to wear and he had no way to cut them to manageable size. He tried fashioning something from another paper napkin, but that was scratchy and tore too easily. He rummaged in some cardboard boxes and discovered a length of wide blue ribbon. He didn’t know where it came from—a long-past celebration of some kind, a wrapping on a bottle of liquor, some bint’s hair. Didn’t matter now. With some effort he was able wrap it about himself, forming a sort of nappy. He knew it was ludicrous, but it was still better than nothing.

His basic needs met, Spike poked around some more and discovered a glass still half full of decent Scotch. Joyce hadn’t allowed him any alcohol; Spike found a cocktail straw and used it to slurp the glass dry. That was more than enough to get him dizzyingly pissed, so he crawled back to his little nest and happily passed out.

He woke up many hours later with a sore head and a terrible taste in his mouth. A tall, broad man with a gray face had entered the bar and was slowly tidying up. He’d turned on the radio as well, one of those horrible talk shows where the announcer spouted hateful nonsense about liberals. Spike had always been fairly certain that most of those radio announcers were demons. Now he realized he was in for hours of confinement, and without a telly or Joyce’s friendly nattering.

Without even consciously deciding to, Spike slipped his left hand underneath the silky ribbon and to his crotch. He hadn’t shagged anyone since Harmony cursed him—it was pretty difficult to get your end away when your todger wasn’t much bigger than a grain of rice. He hadn’t even wanked very often because Joyce always seemed to find out and she’d scold him as if he were a naughty schoolboy. Once she’d even spanked him, tapping her fingertip firmly against his bare bottom, but that had only rejuvenated his hard-on and she hadn’t tried that again.

Now all he had to do was think of Xander and his cock began to fill. He recalled the way it felt when it was Xander stroking him, the hand broader and rougher and hotter than his own. He remembered Xander’s soft hair brushing against Spike’s shoulders, a sweet mouth pressed against his own, a muscular arse flexing under his palms. He liked the sounds Xander made when they shagged—little breathless moans, throaty gasps, grunts of effort, and then a funny little half-voiced sigh, as if he were perpetually surprised at how good it felt. Each of the undreams had ended shortly after the sex, but Spike was certain that in reality—in the world they were meant to be in—they held each other afterward. He was suddenly struck with an unbearable craving to suck on Xander’s neck and have Xander stroke his back and tell him he was loved and cherished. Had they done that as well?

Spike’s hand sped its movements as he imagined sinking his fangs into his boy, just for a little taste, or perhaps his boy nibbling on him. But then a very different picture popped into Spike’s head: him at his current size, literally riding Xander’s cock as if it were a horse, then sliding to the tip of it and bathing himself in Xander’s precome before wiggling just right, like a sentient vibrator, and making his boy come. That was enough to make Spike climax, staining his blue ribbon with his own sticky spend. He cleaned himself with a torn piece of paper napkin.

Customers began to trickle in soon after that, demons of various shapes and sizes, most of whom sat quietly and stared into their drinks of choice. Spike watched them. As the afternoon dragged into evening, the place grew more crowded and Spike eavesdropped on conversations. Some of the chatter was mildly interesting but none of it had anything to do with his boy.

And then the room grew quiet as a large group of people entered. Spike recognized several of them but only had eyes for one. Xander was ignoring his mates, frowning instead and searching the room with his one eye, looking for someone. Looking for Spike most likely, and Spike nearly darted out from his spot behind the bar; but then he stopped. How would Xander react to him as he was now? Perhaps it would be better to follow him when he left, see if he could catch the boy alone.

Xander searched for a few moments more, then his shoulders slumped in defeat. Meanwhile the brunette Slayer from Spike's last not-dream had been talking with a group of green-scaled demons. Spike hadn’t been following their conversation and didn’t know what was going on, but it was clear that neither the demons nor Xander’s lot were happy.

“Look, Prince Charming,” the Slayer said, standing directly in front of the biggest of the demons, “I don’t give a crap about your excuses. You wanna dance? I’m up for it.”

That was a mistake, Spike thought. Now the demon had no choice but to fight, unless it wanted to look weak in front of its comrades. But maybe that had been the Slayer’s desire all along—she certainly looked ready to brawl.

The demon looked at its companions and then back at her. And it growled and leaped, which would have knocked an ordinary human to the ground, but the Slayer was ready. She held her ground and delivered a solid kick that made the demon grunt and fall back a few inches. At that point the others jumped from their seats and the melee was on. Most of the bar patrons left in a hurry and the barkeep stood with an axe in his hands. Not joining in the fight, just protecting his bottles.

Feeling equally protective, Spike winced and stifled a shout as one of the demons attacked Xander. His boy was ready for it, though—with a knife in one hand he slashed at his foe, cutting a gash in its belly. The demon yelled. But it wasn’t a deep wound and it only served to make the creature angrier. It came at Xander again, this time with sharp talons at the ready.

“Xander!” Spike screamed, more a squeak than anything and nobody heard him over the din of fighting. He realized belatedly that he’d crept out of his hiding place and was now in full view of anyone who happened to glance at the bottom corner of the bar. Which was no one at this point, since everyone was either in the fight or watching it.

Spike bounced on his feet helplessly as the demon pummeled and scraped at Xander, who was bleeding from several wounds. Xander had a real disadvantage with the missing eye, Spike could tell; the boy had a blind spot to his left, and his flawed depth perception made him a bit uncertain about the precise locations of things. It was bloody foolish of him to be trying to fight at all, and Spike wanted to go shake some sense into him. But it became clear that soon there would be nothing left to shake as the demon struck again, ripping furrows into Xander’s shoulder while all of Xander’s mates grappled with their own opponents.

Looking around desperately, Spike caught sight of a small container of toothpicks that had been knocked off a table. Some of the little bits of wood had rolled almost to Spike’s feet. He grabbed a handful, trying not to think how neatly any one of the toothpicks could dust him. Then he ran into the middle of the room, dodging feet as he went but nearly flattened by a demon’s enormous boot.

He made it near Xander without major mishap. Sticking the toothpicks through his makeshift loincloth and hoping they'd stay in place, he grabbed hold of Xander’s demon’s trouser leg. Neither the demon nor Xander noticed as Spike scrambled up the thick leg and then up the wide back. The demon didn’t have hair, but it did have tendrils hanging from its head; they reminded Spike of strands of dried seaweed. He hoped they were a bit stronger than that. He used one of them to haul himself up—not easy, considering the way the demon was moving. Spike grasped a toothpick and used the tendril to swing into the demon’s face. The demon finally saw him then, but too late—Spike thrust his weapon directly into the creature’s eye.

Several things happened all at once. The demon screamed and grabbed at its face. Xander yelled as well: “Spike!” And before Spike could let go of the tendril and scurry to safety, the monster wrapped its hand around him, yanked him free, and threw him with all its might across the room. Spike bounced against the far wall and fell to the floor, and then everything went black.

 

***

 

“Hey! Stay still! This is hard enough as it is and I don’t wanna hurt you any worse.”

Spike stopped his panicked flailing and carefully opened his eyes. “Oh,” he croaked as relief washed through him.

A fingertip gingerly moved the hair from Spike’s face. “You’re really banged up. Lots of broken bones. Doesn’t it hurt?”

“Not as much as being apart from you.”

Xander smiled. “Now you’re gonna make me think we’re in a romance novel instead of a fairy tale.”

Spike moved his head, which was a mistake, but he wanted to see where he was. All he could make out was a white ceiling above him. Then Xander was lifting Spike’s leg, very carefully straightening it and splinting it with two lengths of plastic and some yarn. The jostling was painful, but it was so lovely to be touched by Xander that Spike didn’t mind.

“Have you always been this, um, vertically challenged?” asked Xander.

“No. There was a curse.”

“Fuck. Curses, enchantments … we really seem to step in it every time, don’t we? And what the hell were you thinking, tackling a monster so much bigger than you?”

“He was hurting you.”

Xander sighed. “They always do. Anyway, you did manage to distract him pretty successfully, and that was of the good. But Christ, when I saw you hit that wall …” His voice broke a bit and he made a visible effort to get himself under control. “I’ve been looking for you, you know.”

They were both silent as Xander splinted the other leg as well. “What’s the plastic?” Spike asked when Xander was done.

“Spork handles. Will you heal vamp-quick?”

“Yeah. Just need some blood.”

“And I just happen to have a supply.” Xander held his wrist over Spike’s face.

“Veins there are too big. I’ll make a mess.”

“How about this then?” Xander moved his hand down a bit. Spike nodded, vamped out, and bit at the delicate web between Xander’s thumb and finger. Oh, his boy tasted lovely, and Spike knew he’d had this blood many times before.

When Xander moved his hand away, Spike saw that he was grinning.

“What?” Spike demanded.

“You’re kind of … adorable. With the teeny-tiny fangs and the—”

“Oi!”

Xander seemed to be trying to look serious, but he wasn’t succeeding very well. He walked away, and this time Spike turned his head enough to see that they were in a bedroom, and that he was perched atop a bed pillow. And Xander was limping badly.

“You’re hurt!” Spike said accusingly.

Xander was opening a drawer. “I’ll heal. Not as fast as you, but with more of the attractive scarring. Anyway, look what I have.” He turned around and held up the object in his hand: a book.

Spike’s breath caught. “Is that—”

“Yes indeedy. Or at least, so say my sources.” Xander walked back to the bed and sat down, careful not to joggle Spike. “I’m thinking maybe we give this a whirl before we get zapped into another story. I am never watching a Disney cartoon again.”

“Could be worse. This hasn’t been much fun but some of Grimms' tales are rather … well, grim.”

“Great. Look, if we send ourselves back home right now, are you gonna stay like this?”

“Dunno.” Spike looked away. “If I do, you can dust me.”

“Hey.” Xander’s hand hovered over Spike before dropping at his side. “There will be no dusting.”

“But ’m useless to you like this, pet.”

“You are not! You probably saved my life tonight. That’s pretty damn useful, at least by my reckoning. And even if you never lifted a finger to help me again, I’d still need you.”

Spike shook his head. “Can’t shag like this. Can’t snog, can’t hold you.”

“Look, Spike. I don’t know exactly what our real history is and where we belong. But I’m positive there’s a hell of a lot more to us than sex. Not that the sex isn’t nice, ’cause wow. But we’re more than that. I’d go celibate forever if it meant keeping you.”

Spike considered this for a moment and then nodded slightly. “Yeah. I reckon we could still watch one another wank.”

“And we could still talk dirty,” Xander agreed. “It’ll work out somehow. I know it will.”

“Right then. Let’s read a story.”

 

***

 

Spike and Xander blinked at one another in silence.

“Uh … that wasn’t just a really freaky dream, was it?” Xander finally said. Spike shook his head. “But … I think we’re home.”

It certainly seemed so—by all appearances they were in their own bed, in the suite Xander had made for them in the Hyperion. The half-finished drawing Xander had brought back from Praesidium was still hanging on the wall opposite them. Spike’s duster was folded neatly on a chair, and Xander’s collar and leash were on their usual hook.

“Home,” Spike confirmed.

Xander exhaled loudly and drew Spike into his arms. “And you’re big again. God, this feels so good.”

Spike had to agree. There was no place in this universe or any other that he’d rather be.

After a brief pause, Xander said, “You think we should see how long we’ve been gone? I gotta finish the infirmary and we should see what’s up with Wes and Maffeo and—”

“Later. Let’s … let’s just be us for now, yeah?”

“Okay. Good plan.”

“I’m sorry I got us into that mess, love.”

“It’s not like you did it on purpose.”

“So you forgive me?”

Xander drew away slightly so he could look into Spike’s eyes. “Forgive you? Jesus, Spike. I ought to be thanking you. Look what we learned—even when we’re Cinderella or Sleeping Beauty, even when we’re characters in a story and don’t know who we really are, we still love each other. We still do everything we can to save each other. That’s a pretty good thing to know.” His eye was shining with his earnestness.

“It is good. And we also learned that you make a brilliant prince.”

“And you— I gotta admit, the one with William?”

Spike winced. “Yeah. Bloody ponce.”

“Nuh-uh. I liked William a lot, actually.”

After thinking about this for a moment, Spike said, “I wasn’t really like that, you know. He’d have never permitted himself to be seduced like that.”

“So I guess it’s the Spikish version of William that I like. Do you, um, think maybe he might make another appearance sometime?” Xander smiled wolfishly.

Spike smiled back. “Might do.”

“Good. Not now though. Right now I’m plenty satisfied to have my good old Fangface back in good shape. But what about next time?”

“No worries. I won’t be doing any more bedtime reading. Least not until we’re sure the bleeding magic mushroom has worn off.”

“And I suggest you stay far away from my power tools, too. I think maybe my drill is possessed.” Xander closed his eye and leaned his forehead against Spike’s. “But there will be something else, won’t there? A curse, weird alternate dimension dreams … something. And what if that something is … the last thing? The thing that ends us.”

Spike kissed Xander’s cheek. “You’re right, love. Always something. But I can’t picture us as a pair of pensioners, sitting in rocking chairs and … I dunno. Collecting stamps. But you know what?”

“What?” Xander whispered.

Spike kissed him again. “One thing I’m certain of. However grim the things that happen to us, we’ll always have a happy ending.”

Their faces were so close together that Spike could feel it when Xander smiled. He could feel it even better when Xander snaked a hand down Spike’s belly to fondle his awakening cock. “Yeah?” said Xander. “Maybe we’re due right now for one of those happy endings.”

Spike grabbed his lover’s arse. “I expect we are, Xan. Now, give us a kiss and let’s live happily ever after.”

 

~~~fin~~~

**Author's Note:**

> Feedback greatly appreciated!


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